Recovering The Satellites
by xahra99
Summary: In which we encounter Seifer and Quistis once again. Involves three Gardens, four best friends, two posse members,far too much coffee, approximately eight thousand seven hundred cigarettes and a love affair that never should have happened...NOW COMPLETE.
1. Prologue: Recovering The Satellites

Recovering The Satellites.

So why'd you come home

To this angel town?

It's a lifetime decision, recovering the satellites.

All anybody really wants to know is

When you gonna come down….

Recovering The Satellites-Counting Crows

Is it true that every man needs a satellite?

That's what they say…

I'm Not Down-Thea Gilmore(edit).

Welcome to RTS- the third and last fic in my Seifer/Quistis trilogy. The two previous stories are Government Bloodhounds and South Down The Coast. Small summaries are included at the end of this chapter for anyone who's interested.

As for the legal blurb, the Final Fantasy franchise is owned by Squaresoft who retain all rights to characters mentioned in this story. I have merely borrowed these characters to play with and promise to return them in good working order.

Chapter 0- Prologue.

"I'm _not_ talking about this now."

Seifer Almasy's voice was angry.

Quistis Trepe bit her lip to avoid shouting back. She flicked dirty hair away from her face and wrapped her arms tightly around her stained shirt, shivering despite herself.

It was typical, really. They'd only been alone for five minutes, and already things were beginning to get complicated. Seifer tended to have that effect.

She sighed and hugged herself harder, leaning back against the stone and toughened glass wall of the Garden behind her. Seifer didn't seem in the mood for any romantic gestures, and the nights were cold this far north, even in mid-July.

They were both standing on the Training Centre balcony, several hundred feet above the ground. There was nobody else around, which was surprising given the balcony's reputation as a favourite rendezvous for young lovers. Neither Quistis or Seifer was feeling the love at this particular minute. Their situation should have been incredibly romantic, a few last snatched minutes together before returning to the Training Centre to face the music.

It wasn't.

Their brief reunion had been going fine right up to the point where Quistis let them both back into the Training Centre to rejoin Balamb Garden's impromptu reception committee. Under the cover of the hum of the opening doors she'd suggested that they might like to discuss how they were going to handle their relationship from here on out. Seifer had never been very good at sorting anything out, starting with his life and moving upwards, so Quistis had decided it was up to her to make the first move.

Seifer's replay had been first noncommittal, and then, when Quistis pressed him, obscene. At which point Quistis grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back outside, relying on the six-inch thick reinforced steel balcony doors to prevent his voice from carrying to anybody who might be listening.

Things had gone steadily downhill since. The silence was an amnesty of sorts.

Seifer fell silent, for the moment. Quistis drummed her fingers against the bricks and said nothing. After an appropriate pause which she thought much too short but which she knew her superiors would find far too long, she finally changed the track of the conversation. "We should go in."

Seifer leant on the balcony beside her, craning his head to track the path of his fallen cigarette. He spoke uncharacteristically quietly. "Huh. Could've sworn you insisted you wouldn't set foot back in the Training Centre till we finally got this sorted out."

Quistis tightened her lips. There was another long silence. She wondered whether it was late or early. She'd lost track.

Behind her the Garden's bustle muted, most of its inhabitants either asleep or pretending they were. She rubbed at a crack that divided the left frame of her spectacles in two and watched the lights that glittered from the windows of Balamb town. Steady blue flashing lanterns marked the line of the city's perimeter fence which kept the surrounding monsters out and the people inside alive. Further south the across the water the distant buildings of FH bled into the sky, hazing the darkness with the rosy glow of air pollution. The monster-haunted wilderness around the Garden's Balamb Island base spread out maplike before her eyes, veined faintly with dimly-lit roads. The roar of a stray T-Rexaur hung in the air a moment before it faded, raising the hackles on Quistis's neck.

Exhaustion loosened her tongue. "If we don't discuss this now, when do we talk about it? It's not going to get any easier, you know."

Seifer didn't turn around. He was holding himself much too carefully for someone leaning over a balcony and pretending to enjoy the view; tired, she thought, and trying too hard to not to show it. "Maybe we don't need to talk about it."

"Well, if that's what you think." Quistis turned away, disappointed and more than a little hurt as she tried to piece together broken resolutions in her head.

"Hell, Quis, I didn't mean it like that.."

She swung round. "So what did you mean?"

"Hyne, I don't know. Too tired." And as a follow-up, quieter, "Not _now_."

The air was thin, near the mountains, and his voice carried easily.

Quistis tapped her fingers on the hilt of her whip, thinking. She smoothed her hair and turned to stare at Seifer's back, really looking at him through the blurriness that was part exhaustion and part smears on her cracked spectacles.

The practical thing to do would be to get all this sorted out, right now. She entertained that idea for a second before she looked down at herself, then up again at Seifer, and recognised her own weariness in his slumped body. They'd been through too much already. It had been a long day, and it wasn't over yet.

"Fine. Have it your way. But some people are going to want to know what happened in

South Trabia, and they're going to want to know as soon as we step through those doors."

Seifer shrugged with one shoulder. "As long as we both give then the same story."

"Keep it simple. You were in the area and you just happened to hear a SeeD was in trouble. Apart from that.." _I can't believe I'm doing this_, she thought. "tell the truth."

"So I turned up to point and laugh? They won't believe anything else. Quistis, this is _Garden_."

"Even complete assholes are allowed occasional moments of sanity."

"Okay. I went to see what was going on and then you convinced me to help you. I said yes. Thought I'd vanish afterwards, and then along came the Famous Five to save the day."

Quistis frowned. "Those are my _friends_."

"They're still fuckwits."

"Look carefully at yourself, Seifer."

"You wound me."

"I wish."

"You lie."

"Yeah, well." he said, and twisted round to face her for the first time. "Anyway: boy meets girl, boy helps girl rescue herself from evil monsters, boy gets arrested by girl's friends…well, that wasn't exactly on my list of things to do today – but nevermind.."

Quistis considered. "The only problem with this plan is that it hinges on you having some kind of a conscience."

"It's been two years. I might have changed."

They both knew that there wasn't time for anything else. Quistis shrugged.

_It's not like we have time to come up with anything more elaborate. And it's not like I have practise lying. It won't matter, because they won't believe a thing Seifer tells them anyway._

It felt like a betrayal. Quistis was horribly aware that she wasn't doing the best thing for either Garden or Seifer by lying. But she desperately needed time to think about the situation before acting. And time, regrettably, was the one thing they lacked.

"Fine."

She sighed, turned, and hit the button that opened the doors, almost failing to recognise her own gaunt reflection in the smoked glass. Seifer's head jerked round at the whine of the machinery and he took a couple of long strides across the balcony to stand beside her. Quistis saw his own hand go up to touch his face and wondered if he was thinking the same. Or maybe he was remembering. It had been an eventful day.

Quistis stood at ease while she waited for the doors to open, brushing smoke stains from her clothes with hands which were hardly better off. She took her spectacles off, polished them on her skirt and then put them back on, blinking through the resulting smears.

Seifer rolled his eyes, opened his mouth like he meant to say something, shut it again and then contented himself with placing one hand on her shoulder briefly before shoving both hands deep in his pockets. Quistis brushed absently at the mark he'd left, concentrating so hard on trying to look nonchalant that she didn't realise that the doors had hissed open until Seifer shoved her in the back, not gently.

They didn't talk or touch, though any casual observer might have commented that the silence between them both seemed slightly too easy for a soldier and her prisoner. However, this being Garden, anybody watching would have dismissed the possibility of the pair being more than slightly hostile acquaintances out of hand. And any unseen observer would have made a big mistake.

They started down the path into the depths of the Training Centre, while Quistis weighed up the pros and cons of talking to Seifer. She gained confidence as she went along, low voice muffled by the steam. She was prepared to bet her reputation that nobody else was near enough to hear, but kept her comment strictly noncommittal anyway. Living in a military base with a CCTV circuit as well as several hundred nosy teenagers bred honesty.

"Just don't get into any trouble."

"Me?"

"You."

"Look, Quistis; Garden has the best medic-to-soldier ratio for miles, I'm not sure I can get into much more trouble, and chicks dig scars. What's your problem?"

"I know you're not really good at keeping things quiet. This might present a difficulty."

There was no answer. Quistis turned her head, flicking condensation from her glasses with the tip of one finger.

Seifer watched the undergrowth restlessly, searching for the twitch of a monster's tail. There was no movement. For once the Training Centre rested quietly and nothing moved except steam, curling up slowly from gratings in the floor. Condensation collected on his arms, making his skin prickle. He brushed the moisture off irritably, caught the tiny movement of a shadow suddenly too straight and dark for its surroundings and froze.

Quistis didn't. She kept walking, turning slightly to speak over her shoulder. Seifer hissed at her to keep quiet, lunging forwards to stop her in her tracks as she took another few steps.

He missed, which was just as well, because two heartbeats later the shadow merged into a humanoid silhouette and Seifer cursed himself for being so stupid.

"Seifer? What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

Of _course _Leonhart was going to have him watched. Seifer hated Squall, but he wasn't foolish. In fact, he hated to admit it but somewhere along the way Leonhart had made some very good career choices, starting with being on the winning side and working upwards.

Seifer's mouth twisted in a wry grin. _Yeah, and I'm not jealous of that asshole at all._

The surveillance got on his nerves, but to tell the truth there was very little about Garden that hadn't got on his nerves two years ago. He doubted it had changed.

Shaking his head, he took a couple of long strides to catch up with Quistis. The metal walkways slipped under his feet as he kicked a couple of vines out of the way. All of the Training Centre plants were green, lush, and beautiful. You could literally see them growing with the sheer power of photosynthesis. Seifer trod on a creeping tendril snaking out from under his feet. It split with a satisfying squelch.

"What'd ya say earlier?"

"You're not good at hiding things. Or listening, apparently."

The first sentence tripped a switch in Seifer's head. "Hiding…you know there's people covering us, right?"

Quistis pushed her damp hair back. "What did you expect?"

Seifer shrugged, keeping half his attention on the shadows tailing them. He supposed he should feel honoured for the escort but it felt as if he wasn't even allowed to fight his own battles. He mentioned this to Quistis, who sniffed.

"You're not going to be fighting anything for at least a couple of weeks."

Seifer kicked at another vine. "At least I'll be remembered."

"Wait. You might find that living with hundreds of people who all know what you did is just as difficult as living with people who don't even know your name."

"Yeah, this is going to be fun. An action replay of my greatest mistakes."

"You came back." Quistis said, flatly.

Seifer noticed an unfamiliar tone in her voice, and took a closer look. She looked too thin, there were too many angles trapped under her threadbare navy uniform. The dusty print of his hand on her back stood out like a brand.

_She looks pale._

_She was fucking pale to begin with. Maybe I should say something._

_Like what? It'll just come out wrong._

Quistis halted, swinging round to face him. Seifer pulled up, fast, to avoid tripping over his own feet. There was an almost pleading expression in her clear eyes. It was one he was unfamiliar with. It couldn't have been moisture, because Quistis never cried. Quistis would not cry if you gutted her three best friends in front of her.

Then she just shrugged.

The shadows closed. Seifer heard a loud roar of to their left, behind a clump of trees.

"T-rex, Quis. We need to go."

"They're not that bad." Quistis spoke dreamily. She moved away.

"'Cause they use their teeth to conserve body warmth and attract mates, right? You need to get inside."

"We _are_ inside."

"More inside."

"Seifer, what are we going to do?"

"You're asking _me_?"

That didn't seem to be the answer Quistis was looking for, either. It was if he could see her switch off before his eyes. She shouldered him aside and started walking towards the door again. Seifer rocked back on his heels, momentarily startled, and followed her, catching up just as the heavy iron hatch of the training centre hissed open. A small crowd of people were gathered round the doors. It wasn't as big an audience as he'd have liked, but no projectile weapons were on display, at least for the moment.

_Doesn't she want to be seen with me? By all her friends? Is that it?_

_She's ashamed? _

He looked over at Quistis, trying to detect even a hint of embarrassment in her body language. It was just his luck that nearly fifteen years of military training had given Quistis a ramrod straight posture with certain interesting little modifications here and there, so any attempt to read her body language failed miserably.

He thought about kissing her, just for a minute, more of a way of choosing sides than any kind of romantic gesture. In Trabia, when they had both worn the façade of holidaymakers, he would have gone ahead without a second thought, but here and now the sunny beaches seemed miles away, under the bright lights of Garden. How the hell could you sleep with someone and not know even the most basic things about them?

It would be so easy, just to reach over to her.

_Better not. She already looks pissed._

Quistis moved slightly away, hunting for faces in the crowd, and the moment passed without her even noticing. Seifer hesitated for a minute, for once unsure exactly what was expected.

She saw what she was looking for, raised one hand and turned away.

Seifer watched her go.

Quistis fought to focus. Her glazed gaze scanned people in the small crowd that had gathered. A welcoming party or a lynch mob? She didn't know. Maybe a little of both.

People shouted congratulations, a few, forgetting Quistis's hatred of personal space invasion, clapped her on the shoulder. She wished they wouldn't, but it seemed rather ungrateful to tell them to go away. Each contact jarred her bones and left her head spinning.

She glanced back, once, over her shoulder. Seifer stood surrounded by a few SeeDs, scowling like Christmas had just been cancelled. He looked up and almost met her eyes until a tall cadet moved between them and blocked Quistis's line of vision. She turned away and pushed between SeeDs, examining faces and uniforms on tiptoe. It was just about typical that she didn't even recognise one of the people that she was searching for until he was near enough to touch.

"Irvine?"

"Quistis!"

The SeeD suddenly found herself enveloped in a bearlike hug. On most other people she would have found it incredibly invasive, but Irvine was like a younger brother, for all that he was the same age, and annoyingly tactile. Stray strands of his sleek reddish ponytail tickled her nose and made her sneeze. Irvine didn't seem to notice, too intent on squeezing the life out of her. She made frantic little movements with her hands until the Galbadian let her go, abruptly.

"QT. What have they been doing to you, man? You look worn out."

Quistis scowled. "Don't call me that."

Irvine rocked backwards on the heels of his cowboy boots. He stretched out a hand to steady her and the replaced it in one pocket as Quistis unconsciously moved away. "You look like hell. Go and get some rest."

She sighed. "I can't." _I have to make at least some attempt to explain all of this to somebody before I forget what actually happened…... _

Irvine scowled. "Suure you can."

He was unceremoniously elbowed aside by a petite figure in meticulously correct Balamb uniform. A gentleman to the last, Irvine backed off, tipping his hat between thumb and forefinger.

Xu returned the gesture with a curt nod. She turned to Quistis, addressing her much more gently.

"Hon, I'm sorry, I think Squall wants to see you."

Irvine bristled. "Waitaminute….."

Quistis laid a restraining hand on his leather-sleeved arm. Suede prickled soft as butter between her fingers, patches shiny and worn with use. "I'm all right, Irvine. " She drew him off to one side, using the lanky sharpshooter's body to block Xu's field of vision and said "I need to ask you a favour."

The dizziness had passed, and she felt almost normal. Almost. She craned her neck a little over Irvine's shoulder, hunting for another glimpse of Seifer, but all she could see was other people's heads.

Irvine smiled, wickedly. "Anything to help a pretty girl."

Quistis rolled her eyes. Her icy façade was usually enough to deter Irvine, but maybe she was slipping. The cowboy's flirting was never serious (at least, Irvine and Selphie had been one of the great constants of Balamb's dating scene since the wars) but it seemed to be habitual. "Who's in charge of Seifer?

"Don't know. Don't care. Hyne, Quis, can't you learn to let go? He's not your problem any more. Take a break."

Quistis decided that that would be very good advice if she was ever in a position to take it. "Please."

Irvine groaned, reluctantly. "I think it's Zell. At least, he was moaning about something earlier."

"Can you pass on a message for him?"

"Right."

"Tell him to go easy."

"What? Sorry, for one second then I thought you were telling me to tell him to go easy?"

"I did." Quistis said, noncommittally.

Irvine gave her a long, hard look. "So I heard you right, but why?"

"Look, I'm too tired to explain right now. Just do it, okay."

"Ah, you know me. I'll do anything. But just for the record, I think it's a bad idea."

Irvine grasped the brim of his hat between finger and thumb and flicked it down over his face. He attempted an elaborate bow, but was hindered by the sheer press of the crowd. "See ya later, QT." He shouldered through the crowd, revealing the rather out-of-breath face of Xu, who had been trying to fight her way to Quistis round Irvine without much success for the last few minutes.

Xu narrowed her eyes. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing."

"That was a long nothing." Xu pointed out. She glanced up, searching Quistis's face for an answer and then shrugged as it became apparent that one was not forthcoming.

Quistis's exhaustion was making it hard to concentrate on anything. She hunted through her pockets for caffeine pills but found nothing except extra ammo, a spare Hi-potion, and the gritty remnants of beach sand, caught in the seams. Raising her head, she stared over the crowd and for a moment caught a flash of faded black T-shirt.

For a moment she regretted not making some kind of grand gesture, the type Seifer would appreciate. Maybe turning round and kissing him right there, in front of most of Garden. Let them say _then_ that Quistis Trepe was some kind of ice queen nun.

When the truth was that there nothing more she wanted than to turn back to Seifer and get a really big hug. Her eyes were bloodshot, grainy with sand, and it felt like she hadn't had a decent night's sleep in year. She felt empty and told herself it was just the after effects of coming back to work after a long holiday.

Surely nothing more, right?

She turned around to join Xu and managed not to turn round and look at him before she walked through the doors.

Seifer swore under his breath as the crowd surrounded them both. He wondered what was happening and then told himself he didn't care. It was all of three seconds before he realised that that was a load of bullshit -Seifer had never been any good at lying to himself or to anyone else- and opened his mouth just in time to watch her step into the crowd and vanish.

Now that she was gone, nobody seemed to be singling him out. There was no chance of sloping off somewhere -everybody was not-so-obviously keeping track of him and there were a few whispers, but so far nobody had tried either to talk to him or shoot him, a state of affairs that suited Seifer down to the ground. He wasn't in the mood for either conversation or fighting.

He took one step forwards to chase after her. The movement summoned a group of SeeDs so quickly that you could have taken them for well-junctioned GFs. Seifer stopped before he bumped into them and tried to look like he'd just changed his mind because he wanted to.

He leant against the wall and thought about Quistis.

Quistis never lost her composure or raised her voice, but standing there on the balcony he'd known that she must have been perilously close to it. This worried him, slightly. She'd looked slightly frayed at the edges, and this worried him, too.

He raised his head as the crowd merged and split, catching a glimpse of Quistis standing slightly too close to the Galbadian sharpshooter. It made him bristle. Seifer recognised a charm offensive when he saw one. Next to him stood one of the other Seeds, sleek dark hair gleaming slickly under the fluorescent lights.

Irvine, and Xu. One was fairly high on his list of least liked people, the other he didn't know enough well not to like but hated him anyway, just out of principle.

_Wonder what's happening there?_

He watched as the Galbadian pushed away and Xu took Quistis's arm, shepherding her towards a set of double doors. They slid open and Quistis walked through them without even looking back.

Sometimes in combat, the best thing to do was to do nothing. Watching Quistis's sleek head disappear, Seifer realised that this was not one of those times. Doing anything would have been better than standing there in as non-threatening manner as possible and watching her disappear into the clean empty corridors.

Well, almost anything.

By then, it was too late, of course. It always was.

The Story So Far-a brief summary of my fic.

In **Government Bloodhounds** Seifer emerges from Time Compression and goes to ground in a Trabian city. When Galbadian posters featuring his face juxtaposed next to large sums of money appear on every street corner, he runs into Northern Trabia, for reasons that seem like a good idea at the time. Pursued by most of the Galbadian army as well as Quistis Trepe from Balamb, Seifer's chances of long-tem survival look doubtful. Luckily, Quistis reaches him before the Galbadians do, but unfortunately their presence alerts something strange and powerful in the depths of the forest. Seifer, Quistis and the rival Garden forces defeat the monster but not without considerable sacrifices-and Quistis leaves Trabia convinced that Seifer is dead.

The events of **South Down The Coast** prove her wrong. Sent for an idyllic seaside holiday by Squall Leonhart, Quistis is none too pleased to discover that Seifer is alive, well, and living just down the next street. The pair become lovers until a terrorist attack on Balamb forces Quistis to accept another mission. Seifer follows her and they discover that the leader of the supposedly peaceful Childrens Liberation Alliance is in fact a Dollet politician intent on eradicating the Gardens for his own political gain. The rebels turn from opponents into allies when monsters attack the hospital where they are hiding and Seifer and Quistis have to shepherd them to safety. Balamb forces storm the building, save the CLA and arrest Seifer. On returning to Garden, Seifer provokes a duel with Squall, which he loses. Squall, for reasons of his own, spares his life. South Down The Coast ends with Seifer and Quistis standing on the Training Centre balcony, unsure of what the future will bring.


	2. Chapter One: Idiot Wind

Recovering The Satellites

People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act

Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts

Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at

I couldn't believe after all these years, you didn't know me better than that.

Sweet lady…

Idiot Wind-Bob Dylan

Chapter One: Idiot Wind.

The doors closed silently behind Quistis.

Seifer shrugged, a gesture of resignation that could have been mistaken for half a dozen other emotions. He stuffed his hands deeply into his pockets, shrugged again and turned away. The sight that met his eyes confirmed once again that this was a special kind of day.

Quistis had mentioned it, while sunbathing on the seaside rocks. He'd tried to catch a fish, and failed.

_"A salmon day."_

_"What?"_ He hadn't really been listening.

_"You must have had one. You spend the whole day swimming upstream, leaping over rocks."_

_"Doesn't sound too bad."_

_"Arrive, get screwed-and die."_

_"Bad."_

_"Yeah."_

Seifer grinned, excavating an arrogance buried somewhere between the snowy forests of Trabia and the southern beaches. He hadn't practised it for a while. It was hard to be arrogant when you were alone, mainly because there was nobody to show off _to_.

Enter an audience of one…

"Zell."

The small blond martial artist glared up at him, fists on hips. He was dressed in his usual orphaned skater-garb, a pair of baggy black shorts and a T-shirt that read '_Underneath I'm Naked_' in curly gothic font. One sleeve of the shirt had been ripped off, the other held two stripes.

Seifer opened his mouth without thinking and then wished he hadn't. "You're a _sergeant_?"

Zell nodded, proudly. He looked way too pleased with himself for Seifer's taste, so the ex-knight prepared to knock him down a peg or two. When leaders rose above the masses they made a much better target. He smiled, lazily, and said "Huh. Well, they say the scum always floats to the top."

"So why aren't you King?"

"My question exactly." Seifer tipped his head back and stared down at Zell, using his six feet two inches to the best of his ability.

Zell gave him a disgusted look. "I see being dead hasn't made you any less of an asshole."

"Well, being alive hasn't made you any less of a fuckwit." He gave Zell's sergeant's stripes a long, obvious stare and added, "Sir." his voice laced heavily with sarcasm.

"Suppose there's no chance you could fall off the face of the earth for _another _two years, is there?"

"Yeah. Let me go and turn your back."

Zell rolled his eyes, scowling, and then smoothed his face with an effort. "Come on."

Seifer scowled. "I was just leaving." His response was automatic, and, as he realised, stupid.

"Where to?"

Seifer looked away, his gaze sliding easily past Zell and onto the weapons of the several cadets standing behind him. "Don't know."

Even that slight movement of his head ached. Seifer shifted position to a more comfortable slouch, hissing between his teeth as he did so. He didn't have the energy to defy Dincht too hard but if he could be as annoying as possible without moving too many muscles, that was fine with him.

Zell rolled his eyes. He said nothing.

Seifer chalked him up a mark for self-restraint and looked at Zell a little more carefully. Dincht looked …..older. Despite the clothes, which were doing their very best to make him look fourteen.

Of course, it would have been surprising if he'd looked younger, seeing as a whole two years had passed, but Seifer had always considered Garden as existing in a kind of limbo, independent of time. He studied Dincht's face, searching for evidence of something that would indicate maturity. The only change he noticed was a thin raised scar running down one cheek, slicing a corner off Zell's elaborate tattoo.

Seifer raised a hand to his own face. _I hope that wasn't me. No, looks fresher than that._

Zell jerked his head, his shaggy crest of blond hair swaying treacherously.

Seifer figured out that he was supposed to follow. He stayed put. "Do you know where Quistis went?"

"No."

"I want to see her." Seifer said, automatically, remembered that he wasn't supposed to be bothered and shut his mouth.

_Hm__. Should have tried reverse psychology: if I'd said that I didn't care what the hell happened to me as long as I didn't have to see her he'd have taken me quicker than a racing Chocobo. _

"Fine, you self-centred bastard." Zell spat. "I don't think she wants to see you."

"You don't know that."

"She needs to rest. Did you see the state of her? Hell, you probably didn't even notice."

"Did you ask her?" Seifer snapped. He didn't like the protective tone in Zell's voice when he spoke of Quistis. And as far as her appearance went: they'd each been through exactly the same stuff in Trabia. It wasn't his fault that Quistis needed more sleep than him.

Zell bit back a word and then stopped, shaking his head. His expression told Seifer that right now the ex-knight could be blamed for anything. "No. She's got enough on her mind right now."

Seifer raised an eyebrow.

Zell scowled reluctantly at him. "I've been told to ask if you want anything."

_That must grate_, Seifer thought. He stuffed both nicotine-stained hands in his pockets, watching the sudden narrowing of the SeeD's eyes. "A new trenchcoat. Grey, for preference, maybe black. Hyperion, some cigarettes. And I want to see Quistis." He added the last comment almost as an afterthought, for camouflage, when in fact he wasn't too bothered about any of the other stuff. Apart from maybe some cigarettes. He could really do with something to smoke right about now.

"No, no, we're non-smoking, remember? And maybe later. If she agrees."

Seifer grinned, confident of Quistis's answer. "Where's Squall?"

"He's busy with his meeting. You're under dorm arrest till he's finished. For your own safety."

"Mine? Or everyone else's?"

Zell looked disgusted. Seifer was used to a variety of reactions, respect, wariness, fear, even, but the small martial artist's glare of absolute loathing was a new one. He wasn't sure he liked it.

"Quistis." He didn't bother to ask. Either Zell would agree or not, and he had a damn good idea of which one it would be.

"No."

Seifer hated him for an instant. He'd expected it. He thought about quoting his rights for a minute until he remembered that he'd never bothered to learn them, and possibly didn't have any.

"Come on."

Seifer went. He wasn't sure he had any other option.

Squall ran a hand through his hair, ruining the last of the gel holding the unruly strands together. He brushed it out of his eyes in irritation, searching through a pile of folders on his desk while simultaneously trying to unfasten his SeeD dress uniform collar and read a press article. "Did you find the files, Xu?"

His secretary slammed a pile of laminated folders onto the desk. "Permission to speak frankly, Sir."

Squall gave her an I-really-don't-need-this-now glance, but nodded. "Granted." He squinted into the glass of a picture frame and began to unbutton his jacket.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Squall scowled minutely, profile knifeblade-sharp in the mirror.

Xu spread her hands in frustration, knocking a pile of paperwork onto the floor. "Why did you let Almasy in?" She added, after a short but noticeable pause. "Sir."

Squall shrugged and flicked the last collar clasp open.

Xu knelt down and started shuffling the papers into order. "You know exactly what he was." She raised her eyebrows, glaring at him over the printouts, shuffled the paper into order and slammed the whole sheaf down onto the desk again.

"Who." Squall observed, mildly. He unfastened the thick belt from round his waist and turned away from the mirror, hands already reaching for his leather jacket, thrown on carelessly over a SeeD regulation dress shirt. It always annoyed Xu that he refused to wear some kind of special uniform to make it clear that he was Garden Commander and not just a normal SeeD.

She sighed, resting both hands palm-down on the desk. "Not who, what."

"Everyone knows, Xu. If you're going to complain make it quick. I've got things to do."

Xu rolled her eyes. "I know."

Squall raised an eyebrow and said nothing. He scooped printouts out of a fat leather briefcase.

"I don't think you've thought this through, Sir."

Silence.

Xu tried again. Squall's silences were legend. They usually had one of two effects on people: either they poured their heart out in a vain attempt to fill the deathly hush or stuttered to a halt as the sheer force of Squall's non-communication swallowed their words like some kind of black hole.

Two years had given Xu a kind of immunity, and so she soldiered on regardless. "He could be used as a bargaining chip to improve relations with …various countries."

"Meaning Galbadia."

"Whatever we might get for handing him over to whoever's interested will be better to the corporation than having him hanging around doing not much. Free, he's a liability." She clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back on the heels of her sensible shoes. "From the point of view of someone who has to deal with him every day, it'd be a lot easier to ship him out somewhere secure where he's someone else's problem."

"That it?"

"Sir, yes, sir."

"He's our problem, Xu. Means he's our responsibility."

"He's a thug and a psycho. He almost destroyed Garden and he'll do it again if you let him."

"I won't."

"Sir?"

"My word, Xu."

"Sir?"

"Xu, you have my word." Squall clipped the briefcase clasps shut, spinning the combination locks set into each clasp.

"It's not yours I'm worried about, sir. I have a problem with any plan that hinges on Almasy promising to stay where he is and not causing any trouble."

Squall scratched at his face. "Did I say that was what I was going to do?"

"No, sir."

"You don't have to call me sir, Xu."The weariness in his voice implied that a similar conversation had occurred many times before.

"No, sir. It's about respect, sir."

Like most of his staff, Xu would happily have walked over red-hot coals for Squall. The man engendered almost fanatical loyalty in almost all of his employees. She had, however, certain qualities that she expected in a leader. Number one was some kind of honorific. Number two was a uniform. Squall passed all of her other criteria with flying colours, such as obvious hero qualities, fairly blameless personal life and aura of authority.

It was just a pity about the uniform.

"Do you want me to call Cid?"

"Why?"

Under Squall's slight frown Xu stuttered into silence. She said in a tiny voice "No reason. I just thought you might need some backup."

"I'll be fine." Squall changed the subject. "I've made a list of things that I need you to do for me in the meantime."

Xu's expression said that she would only be too happy if number one read 'execution.' "Sir."

"And I'm worried about Quistis. Debrief her, Xu. And then schedule her light duties for the next few weeks."

"Affirmative, Sir. She's in the second floor classroom. I'll see to it right away."

Squall just nodded. Xu risked a more urgent question.

"Almasy?"

"Just leave him alone for the moment. I'll see to it later."

Xu raised an inscrutable eyebrow and tried again "Are you sure that's wise, Sir?"

"No. See you later."

Squall's secretary lifted her eyebrows for a second time and sighed. She sniffed and then walked over to Squall's desk, ready to deal with the paperwork that her Commander's departure and enemy's arrival seemed to have generated. After five minutes of mostly unsuccessful tidying and no appearance from Seifer she gave up and headed out of the door, Quistiswards.

It was going to be a long day.

_It's been a long day._

Seifer sprawled on his back on a cheap standard-issue SeeD mattress, the raised waffle pattern of the springs digging into his shoulderblades. The bed was long enough but just a shade too narrow, product of the administration's firm belief that downsizing the beds limited all students to a one-person, one-bed kind of existence. It didn't work. Seifer could testify to that.

He shifted again, trying to fight his way into a more comfortable position. This also failed to work. It would have made sense just to relax, let his guard down and try to get some rest, but Seifer was way too wired to sleep. Fidgeting, he sighed, folded one arm back behind his head and examined the fingers of his right hand without interest. They probably weren't fractured, but it was hard to be sure. He swore vaguely at Squall, forming the four letter words in his head automatically.

_So.__ Back at Balamb again, now that's a turn up for the books. Home at last, back in the (relatively) real world after two years of drifting_. _It's almost like the last two years didn't happen. I didn't join the wrong side of a coup, defending a cranky witch against my schoolfriends. Wasn't thrown into Time Compression, wasn't spat out again. And I never met Quistis on the beach in __South Trabia__. So I couldn't have followed her into a hospital fifty miles away to save her from the bad guys and try and act the hero._

_Story of my life.__ Never figure out I'm in shit till it's up to my knees._

Some events were hard to forget. His muscles ached like hell from the duel with Squall, strained tendons forgotten or overlooked in the white heat of a death match coming back to haunt him.

_Seemed like a good idea at the time…Pity_ _I seem to attract trouble like a bug-zapper attracts big, juicy, stupid moths….._

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices from outside, lazy with the Balamb accent he hadn't realised he'd missed.

Seifer dug his elbows into the mattress and levered himself up to a sitting position while sparing his bad hand. The mattress twanged horribly, in a manner that indicated its last remaining springs were giving up the ghost. Seifer knew how it felt. Silently groaning at complaining muscles, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and watched the door.

It didn't open.

Seifer's thoughts drifted back to the duel, his only consolation that Squall must feel just as bad. He'd relaxed enough to think about lying back down and maybe trying to sleep this time when the handle turned and opened. Craning his neck to the side, Seifer saw only a dark-uniformed sleeve before the intruder tossed a package on the floor and withdrew. Didn't want to be polluted, probably, and he couldn't honestly blame them. In all the two years he'd been away, the only thing he was proud of was finally managing to get it together with Quistis. And now that they'd returned to Garden, even that was suspect….

_Quistis__- I wonder where you are right now. Having second thoughts, maybe -no. No. If it all goes to shit right now, at least there's one good thing I've done…._

He turned his attention to the parcel. It was about the size of a cushion and crudely wrapped in a white carrier bag. Too tired to be cautious, Seifer got up from the bed, scooped it up and returned to his position on the mattress, ripping the top carelessly from the package. Torn cardboard fragments drifted to the floor as he explored the contents.

Inside was a bundle of dark material. When shaken out it proved to contain a red T-shirt, slightly faded, and a pair of black tracksuit bottoms, a blue stripe decorating the seam of the outside leg.

_Hn__. Guess I could do with a change. _

Glancing up, he caught sight of his reflection in the glass. _And a wash._

Combing his hair back with his fingers, he tried his old confident grin in the glass. It didn't work, which worried him. If he couldn't charm even himself, who the hell else was he going to convince? Seifer understood the value of making an impression, even if it was a bad one.

There was a bar of hard white soap laid out on the sink. It was standard Garden issue, like everything else in the room. He checked the contents off on his fingers. Bed, mattress, wooden table on the floor next to the bed, alcove over the other side of the room fitted with shelves to hold books and personal belongings. It wasn't large. SeeDs weren't encouraged to hoard possessions. There was no wardrobe: from experience he knew that a thin rail running down the wall next to the bed was supposed to hold coathangers. It didn't. Seifer tried not to think of the opportunities an artfully twisted coathanger might bring.

In addition to the missing coathangers there was no computer terminal, and that and the presence of a stainless-steel sink instead of an en-suite bathroom told him that it was a cadet's room instead of a full SeeD's. A room exactly the same as the one he'd occupied, two years ago.

It was almost comforting, in a way. It felt as if maybe he'd be able to turn back the clock somehow. Blink and he'd wake up with his old grey coat hanging on the door to the sounds of Raijin's snoring coming from the neighbouring room.

_I doubt I'll ever be asked to share with a roommate again. Knew there must be some good points to betraying my home of ten years…_

Surprisingly, it really did feel like home. Nothing much had changed. Sure, he didn't recognise the faces of any of the cadets, and they all looked younger than he remembered back when he had been one, but that was a moot point.

Seifer realised that he was staring off into space and quickly shook his head. He leant closer to the mirror, scrubbing at a smoky stain with the ball of his palm.

_Hm__ Don't think I've changed that much. No wonder they all still recognised me._

The scar on his face was much paler, just like Squall's Eventually, Seifer guessed, it would become almost indistinguishable, if he lived long enough to gain any significant lines on his face.

He turned on one of the taps experimentally, and grinned as it gushed water. No dodgy plumbing for Balamb. The water was warm and pleasant as he washed. There was no towel, so he dried his face on the remains of his old T-shirt. There was no glass, either, so he drank out of the tap, not bothering to turn the hot water off first. It tasted of limescale, but as long as it wasn't beer, or something more potent, he wasn't honestly bothered. _Right.__ Fresh clothes._

He looked at the parcel of clothes, guessing that even their choice was diplomatic, and chucked the shirt to the floor on the other side of the room. The addition to the décor made the room even more like his old dorm. Seifer grinned, shucked off his remaining clothes and threw them to the floor as well, so the shirt didn't get lonely. He changed quickly and then looked down at himself.

It would have been much easier just to requisition a spare uniform from the stores, but after all, he'd never made SeeD, and he was guessing that somebody had decided that it was important he be reminded of that. The shirt looked like a spare from one of the team games he'd never bothered to take part in. Back in the old days, some desperate coach had blackmailed Seifer into playing a single game of rugby just because Raijin would compete too. And if Raijin played, the school team would be able to compete at international levels. One eventful match later the conclusion had been that nobody needed Raijin _that_ much.

He'd never been any good at team sports: or team anything, come to that.

Seifer went back to inspecting the clothes.

The trousers were standard athletics issue, with Balamb Garden's blue stripe. There were no shoes, so he kept his old boots, even though they looked odd with the tracksuit. Lacing them up, his fingers touched the faint raised outline of a ridged piece of sharpened metal, sewn into the tongue. The toecaps were also metal. So he had a kind of weapon, if nothing else. The razorblade was no substitute for Hyperion, but it was something.

Seifer resumed his position on the bed, flat out with one arm crooked behind his head and his line of vision heading straight for the door. Leaning back against the mattress, he was forced to admit that he didn't have much else.

_Owing Leonhart.__ What a fucking mess._

He didn't like to think that he would have killed Squall, if he'd been in the same position.

Gratitude was an alien concept. Seifer and Squall had always been enemies.

_I'm his eternal rival and in order to be his rival I have to pose something of a threat. _

_Quistis__ would say I was his rival. I'm not sure I like that._

_Ah, hell. So I fucked up and caused no end of trouble for Quistis, blew the shit out of Garden, gave Rinoa to Adel and fought on the wrong side. That doesn't mean I owe Balamb anything._

Any normal person might have put "feeding my girlfriend to evil" and "blowing up many civilians" before "making my teacher lose her job" but Seifer had never even pretended to be normal.

One of the guards coughed, outside the door. Seifer blanked out his mind and stared at the ceiling, which hadn't got any more interesting in the last five minutes. A fly buzzed lazily round the bare lightbulb in the middle of the room. Seifer thought about switching it off and trying to get some sleep, but then decided against it, opting instead to be prepared for whatever came. By the time the fly had dropped to crawl against the window pane, exhausted, he'd fallen into an uneasy doze.

He was woken, several hours later, by the sound of a key turning in the lock and sat bolt upright, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and feeling for a weapon that wasn't there with the other.

It was Zell.

Seifer lay down again and threw an arm over his eyes. "Switch the light off when you go out, Dincht."

"Get up. I've got to take you to Kadowaki."

Seifer forgot himself enough to form a coherent reply. "Why?"

"You'll love this. I have to make sure you're not hurt."

It took Seifer's drowsy brain a few seconds to work this one out. "I just had to duel to the death and you're here to make sure I'm not _hurt_?"

Zell nodded.

Seifer considered. He suspected that he was supposed to be grateful. _Well, fuck them_. "I forgot you were the good guys."

"Aren't you coming?" Zell's tone suggested that his patience was wearing thin.

Seifer just shrugged, a hard gesture to make in a recumbent posture, but he managed it.

Zell clenched his fists, framed in the doorway. The tip of his hair reached three-quarters of the way up the frame, Seifer snickered, but quietly.

"You're pathetic, you know? You're not even a loser any more. You're a shell of a loser"

Seifer stuck one finger in his ear. "Hey, I'm naturally blond, please speak slowly."

Zell absently raised one hand to his own crest of hair, teeth gritted. "You're coming. I don't care if you're not hurt, because you will be in a minute."

The ex-knight shrugged again and levered himself up from the bed, sauntering past Zell with a lazy grin. "You and whose army, chicken-wuss?"

Zell slammed one gloved hand against the doorframe, obviously wishing it was Seifer's head. "Shut up."

Seifer considered the joys of virtual immunity. Not that he wanted to push the martial artist too far, but _damn_, it was fun. "It's a free country."

Zell shouldered past him, muttering under his breath. "I think Squall made a big mistake." He led the way down the corridor to the nurse's room, setting a fast pace.

Seifer struggled to keep up, his long stride somewhat curtailed by the fact that he felt as if every muscle in his body had been fed repeatedly through a meat grinder. He rejected out of hand the possibility of asking Zell to slow down and settled for clipping the back of his leg with a boot. "Nah, don't bother about the escort. I can find my own way there."

It worked, because Zell swung round, slowing his pace so as to avoid tripping over his own feet. "Shut your mouth or I'll do it for you."

"You won't."

"I will."

Seifer smirked. "You won't - because Squall told you not to."

"Actually, it was Quistis, and I don't know why the hell she got Irvine to tell me that.."

Zell snapped, and then stuttered to a halt. He swung right back round and set off to the infirmary, moving even faster than before.

Seifer cursed, trying his best to keep up. Thankfully it was fast enough. Zell had short legs. He thought of Quistis while they took the back way to the Quad and from there to the nurse's office, trailing his fingers along the purple stripe set into the wall to guide new students for no other reason than because it annoyed the hell out of Zell.

_Nice to know she cares. Otherwise I might have less teeth. _

He felt almost ashamed. Antagonising Zell wasn't even a challenge. It was as easy as shooting penned Chocobos, but much more addictive. There was another feeling, under all the bullying bravado, surrounded by other people that had what he'd almost wanted.

He tried to tell himself it wouldn't have suited him at all.

It was mainly that he didn't feel protected any more, or confident that he was doing the right thing. Tired, worried and maybe a little scared, somewhere underneath.

Damned if he was going to let Zell see _that_, though…

_It'd be much easier not to try. I fought my way out of here once, I can do it again. And why the hell shouldn't I, anyway? I''ve already screwed up once; what if I do it again? What if I just can't do anything else? _

There were three factors, if he really considered it. The first was Quistis. The second was that he wanted to fix what he'd ruined; just to prove everybody else wrong. The third was telling him to run.

_Well, fuck that…_

"Hey, Dincht?"

"Yeah?" The SeeD's voice was unfriendly.

"Are Selphie and that Galbadian dating?"

"Maybe. What's it got to do with you?"

"Nothing. Is he from one of those chocobo ranches? The ones out in the desert?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Nothing. Just thought he might be seeing her 'cause he likes riding big yellow birds.."

He didn't give a damn about Selphie and Irvine, whatever they were doing. But harassing Zell's friends had always been a better way to wind him up even than harassing Zell.

"It's a good job Squall wants you alive, Almasy."

"Yeah? Isn't it 'Commander Leonhart' now?"

Zell muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath.

"Still giving all the best jobs to his buddies? Can't think you'd have made sergeant if you hadn't gone to school with him."

"Listen, you piece of shit, you owe him."

Seifer fell back on his earlier musings. _And they say that thinking doesn't pay. _"Zell. Get real. So I picked the wrong side. That doesn't mean I owe Balamb anything."

He was almost half-serious. After all, they'd brought him back.

"You're still alive. That means you owe us _lots_." Zell hissed.

"Don't expect to collect any time soon, Dincht. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly rich."

"I didn't mean it like that."

Seifer ignored him. "I guess Hyperion-nah, that'd only pay for about zero-point one percent of the damage….."

"It'll just have to be blood, sweat and tears."

"No, maybe, and what the fuck have you been smoking."

Zell fumed. "You're still a jerk."

"People change."

Zell looked puzzled at this sudden defusing of verbal armaments. "Some don't."

"Uh, yeah. They do. I used to think you were a world-class fuckwit. Now…well, I don't think you're world-class any more."

This last comment made Zell's face, which had been slowly darkening in colour ever since Seifer insulted Irvine and Selphie, finally turn bright red. He looked poised on a hair-trigger. Seifer wondered if he'd pushed too hard and then dismissed the thought out of hand.

He opened his mouth to say something even more insulting. It was anybody's guess what would have happened had he succeeded -Zell had a short fuse at the best of times- but just at that minute they reached the infirmary door. It was an easy get-out clause for Zell.

The small martial artist kicked the door open and all but pushed Seifer in through it. The doors slid shut behind him. Seifer spun round, fingers ready in an obscene gesture, and then lowered his arm as he came face to face with yet another familiar figure from his past.

_Kadowaki_

The doctor had aged well. She'd been comfortably middle aged when last Seifer had seen her. Now she was the shape of a small cottage loaf, topped off with a messy bun of still-dark curly hair and a pair of wireframed spectacles She looked down at her notes, tapped the pencil she was holding against the glasses and then glanced up.

Seifer thought cynically that somebody must have warned her of the news, because her expression didn't change one bit. But then, Doctor Kadowaki was the sole permanent medic for five hundred SeeDs, staff and students, and had been for thirty years. If a cadet had walked into the infirmary carrying his head under one arm, she'd have asked him not to drip too much on the carpet and had everything bandaged up in a matter of minutes. The return of Garden's least liked prodigal son was nothing in her book.

Seifer had always avoided her unless absolutely necessary -third-degree burns, major arterial bleeding, that kind of stuff. Anything less wasn't worth the inevitable lecture about picking fights which always followed the first aid.

He leant against the doorframe, wondering if she'd really seen him and feeling vaguely indignant that the SeeDs were being so unreasonably fair.

The doctor glanced down at her paperwork again, then laid down her pen and turned to Seifer with a shrug that implied fatalistic acceptance. "Come in and sit down. Don't hang about the door." Her bright brown eyes followed him all the way to the chair before, triage completed, she steepled her hands on the desk and stared over her interlaced knuckles. "What have you been doing with yourself for the last two years, young man?"

Seifer shrugged. "You don't want to know." He was getting fed up of lectures, or at least people who looked like they were about to give him lectures, the doctor being the only one that had dared so far. Quistis excepted, of course, but he figured she probably had the right.

The doctor pushed her glasses up on her nose with one finger, a gesture so like Quistis that Seifer knew instantly where the tall blonde had picked up the habit from. "I quite agree with you. I don't. Hold out your hand."

The ex-knight rolled his eyes but complied. Dr Kadowaki was the point where his general disrespect for authority slid headlong into a brick wall, mainly because if you disrespected authority long enough and hard enough you would eventually be in need of her services. The doctor's white-gloved hands moved spiderlike over his own, poking and prodding efficiently. Eventually she glanced up and snapped "Move your fingers."

Seifer turned the instinctive gesture into a half-hearted wave. He sprawled over the desk free arm angled on the very edge of the table which he watched the clock with a kind of bored fatalism. One the other side of the desk Kadowaki bent everything that could bend in his injured wrist and some things he knew that shouldn't.

Seifer scowled, kicking the heels of his boots against the vilely coloured violet lino. He'd never liked medics. Frowning slightly, he moved his free hand up slightly to rub at the scar that ran in a neat line from the inside corner of his left eye to the point of his right eyebrow.

Dr Kadowaki turned his arm over, cool fingers examining and testing with clinical competence. She spoke without looking up, in short punchy sentences learned through thirty years of emergency medicine. "You should have let me sew that up two years ago. Squall's healed much better. Too impatient. That's your problem. One of many."

Seifer narrowed his eyes but didn't move his hand away from his face. "His looks just as bad."

"Don't scratch it!" Kadowaki seemed to swell in size. She half-stood behind her desk, leant across the table top and slapped his hand away with the speed of a striking snake. Seifer got the feeling he was only the last instalment of a very bad day, which perversely made him feel a little better. So somebody else was getting it rough, too. About damn time.

"Nothing broken." She reached behind her and took something off a tall shelf.

"Huh?"

"Your hand. I'd tell you to rest it, but last time I knew you, you wouldn't listen to anybody. I doubt you've changed. " She slapped a tube of cream on the table." As for the scar, put this on first thing every morning. It should help the inflammation. Can't guarantee anything, I'm afraid: it's been too long, but.."

She picked up her pen and made a short note on a form in front of her, seeming to forget all about finishing the conversation.

In the silence, Seifer flicked the tube towards, him, confused. He squinted and tried to read it. The chemical name on the front didn't make any sense, and the small print on the label kept jumping up and down in front of his eyes. He frowned.

"Once a day, in the morning."

"What?"

"The lotion. Your face. And don't scratch it. You'll only make it worse."

Seifer read the tube again. The chemical name still meant nothing to him, but he guessed from the doctor's comments that it was some kind of healing salve. He flexed his fingers and said a grudging "Thanks." then glanced down at his wrist. The examination had done nothing to help the purpling bruising, a memory of his duel the previous evening. Squall had disarmed him with the flat of his blade after a mere thirty minutes, and the memory ached more painfully than any sprain. "What about a Cura?"

"I've got better things to do than waste magic on something that'll heal by itself if you let it. Anyway, if it feels better you'll use it right away and then it'll get worse. Spells aren't a substitute for rest and recovery, no matter what all you soldiers think."

Seifer raised one eyebrow, half-amused.

_Well, that told me_.

He rolled the tube of ointment over and over in his hands, staring behind the doctor's broad, white-clad back at the bottles and strange preserved specimens stacked high on the shelves behind her. Pale shapes rolled and floated in glass pickling jars, each one neatly dated and labelled.

_Is that a finger? _

He stretched, and said, half in jest "I don't deserve this."

The doctor didn't look up from her writing. "No. You don't. But I've treated soldiers all over the world. Civilians, too. And let me tell you, Seifer, you're no different."

Seifer rolled his eyes, not much liking the sound of this. Kadowaki continued her monologue.

"The infirmary has certainly been quieter over the last two years. Squall and you-one of you was always in here. And the fun wasn't over until somebody else had started bleeding, as I recall." She glared at him over her spectacles. "Care to tell me how that happened?"

Seifer pretended ignorance. "What?"

"The hand."

"The usual. Just another fight." He kept his voice casual, pretending the duel hadn't been a big deal. He didn't particularly want to admit to anyone that Squall had beaten him.

Again.

"Is that it?"

Kadowaki checked a printed barcode on the tube of medicine and scribbled it down on a stray sheet of paper. She flicked the container across the table top to Seifer, who caught it automatically. "Just one form to go. Any vomiting, change of appetite, disturbances of vision, pain in any or all joints, loss of use of one of more appendages, itching, nausea, sexually transmitted diseases, burns, bleeding, oozing or swelling that I should know about?"

"Nope. Can I go?"

The doctor smiled. "Yes. You're fine, so far."

"Great." Seifer said.

"Change your attitude, or you won't be. I think Zell's waiting for you."

_Joy. _Seifer thought, bitterly. He got up, hooking the chair back under the table with the toe of one boot. "He would be."

Kadowaki pushed her glasses up her nose once more. "I don't want to see you in here again for a good long while. Or anyone else because of you", she added, after a brief silence. "There's only so much I can do, you know, even with magic. So take care of yourself."

Seifer grinned. "Yes, ma'am."

"Don't you yes ma'am me. Change your ways. I mean it. They say you came back, so I suppose that's a start. And for Hyne's sake, STOP SMOKING."

Seifer gave her his most charming grin, one designed to make anything female present wish that they'd at least bothered to put on some makeup. It didn't work. The doctor just snorted and went back to her paperwork.

Feeling like he was sixteen again and escaping a lecture in the headmaster's office,

Seifer slid the door open. As he reached the other side, a thought struck him and he muttered "How'd she know I smoked?" under his breath, looking himself critically up and down until his gaze came to rest on his nicotine-stained fingertips.

_Oh. That. _

Zell and the other SeeDs were still waiting on the other side of the door. Without saying anything they formed a neat circle round Seifer and started walking back towards the dorm level. Seifer didn't like being herded along like some kind of chocobo, but in the end he decided that refusing to move would be too much trouble, and being dragged would be undignified. Plus, he really didn't feel like fighting. So he went.

He told himself that he was just going along with it to lull the SeeDs into a false sense of security. His brain (at least, the part of his brain that told him to do crazy, or as he preferred to think of them, decisive) actions seemed to be happy with that.

Zell's back was rigid. Seifer guessed that he was furious, and trying not to show it. It could have been the verbal jibes, but Zell being the overprotective idiot he was, Seifer guessed that the martial artist was dying to ask him what had happened in the hospital with Quistis. This being Garden, he couldn't. Had to stick to the rules, some paragraph or something.

_Those Garden laws.__ Gotta love 'em._

He attempted conversation. "I'm okay. Aren't you glad?

Zell sighed. "You're lucky you're not dead."

"Yeah? Do I get a last request?"

"No."

"Bury me face down so the world can kiss my ass."

Zell didn't look round, a fact that Seifer resented. "You're not even worth talking to."

_Oh. Low low. He's improved. No match for a master, of course. _

He decided to change tack, opened his mouth again and then stopped as Xu strode by, carrying a pile of forms and looking like she knew where she was going. She gave him a cool look as she went by.

"Fraternising with the enemy, were you, Zell?"

"No."

"You know you're not allowed to talk to him until Squall debriefs him."

Zell looked subdued. "I know."

Seifer gave him a mocking grin. "I can talk to him if I want."

The glacial gaze redirected. "I think you should really keep your mouth shut, knowing how much trouble you're in. Don't you agree?"

Seifer smirked. "Xu, you need to get laid."

"And you need to get lost, but we don't always get what we want, now, do we?"

"And you're breaking your own rules." Seifer helpfully pointed out.

Xu looked insulted. She glared at him, harder and then appeared to come to some decision, possibly that if she denied Seifer's comment she'd only come off worse.

Instead she touched Zell's shoulder. "Good luck. You'll need it."

Zell only nodded. He looked abashed but somehow more resolute as Xu turned and walked off, sensible heels clipping the Garden tiles.

Seifer wondered where she was going.

There was no more talking, after that. Seifer had somehow lost the heart for sniping, and the cadets seemed to have rediscovered their professional ethic. Silently, they delivered him to his room and left him there, locking the door firmly after them.

Seifer waited. He waited for an opportunity, or for somebody to remember he was alive, but mostly he waited to see what was going to happen next.

Surprisingly, it wasn't long in coming.

"Are you all right?"

"Xu, I'm fine. I wish everybody'd stop asking me that."

Xu raised her eyebrows, an expression of extreme scepticism written upon her face. She slid into a seat in front of Quistis's and rested her arms on the back of the blond woman's desk. They were in the second floor classroom, Quistis's old domain. There were unfamiliar diagrams on the state-of the art audiovisual presentation system at the front of the classroom, behind the heavy wooden desk that had once been hers. She stared at them and wondered idly who had been assigned to teach her students, while she was running around in Trabia.

Not that she had many students any more. The spectacular failure of her last teaching assignment had seen to that, coupled with the disaster the previous winter in Northern Trabia. She doubted that the complete mess she'd made of her latest mission had increased her standing any further.

There was a gentle touch on her arm. Quistis, startled but above all very tired, realised that Xu had been trying to tell her something. She rested her forehead in the palm of one hand, trying to massage her brain back into action. "Sorry. You'll have to run that past me again."

Xu sighed. It wasn't an exasperated sigh. Quistis couldn't work out whether it was pity or not. "Okay, I don't care if it's against the rules." She stretched her hand across the desk and touched Quistis's arm. "Curaga."

Quistis gasped as the healing spell washed over her. The magic swept through her veins, dissolving in her blood to revitalise tired cells. Her heart pounded in her chest like she'd just run a circuit of the Quad. The classroom greyed out and then cleared as the spell rushed through her brain to focus her vision. A thousand minor pains she'd managed to accumulate over the last twenty four hours dissolved, replaced by a feeling of pure vitality.

Quistis thought grimly that it was a pity the effect never lasted. From experience she knew that there would be one hell of a backlash in a few hours, but by that time she hoped she'd be in bed, asleep. It all depended on how long this ..interrogation was going to take.

She stopped shivering and unwound her arms from around her torso, pulling herself up in her seat.

Xu smiled. "Better?"

"Yes. Thank you." Quistis added, somewhat awkwardly. She looked down at herself, awake enough to realise just how much of a mess she was. White shirts might look smart, but pale clothes showed up stains horribly.

_I don't think dry cleaning's going to sort this out._

She raised her head and looked at Xu, but the immaculate SeeD just made her feel worse. Her uniform was so pin-sharp and neat that you could have used the collar of her shirt to draw a line. Quistis's shirt wasn't even ironed.

She rested her chin in her hands, running her fingers through sticky hair and then flicking it away with distaste. With practised movements she drew half of it up to form a neat bun and then pushed the rest behind her ears. "What's going to happen now?"

"Squall gave me orders to debrief you."

Quistis looked around. The familiar Garden surroundings gave her strength, making her wish that she'd never met Seifer just so that she didn't have anything to hide. Technically she'd never made a promise not to betray him, but some things you didn't have to say. Seifer had never said why he'd followed Edea, back in the wars, but she guessed he'd followed much the same reasoning.

Childhood habits, once formed, were hard to break.

She laid one hand on her torn skirt and crossed the fingers, under the table, so Xu couldn't see. Childish, she knew, but somehow it made her feel better. She swallowed and said "Let's get this over with."

It didn't take as long as she'd expected, with the Cura spell coursing through her veins, helping her to neatly organise her thoughts into more familiar patterns. Xu leant over the desk in front of her made and notes, recording the whole conversation on a small device laid out on the table top beside her. Quistis gave her a potted history of her mission in the Trabian town, starting with the information Xu herself had given her: a simple negotiating mission to iron out issues between a civilian protest group on behalf of all the Gardens. She resisted the temptation to embellish her story as a way of making Seifer look more blameless, reasoning that he'd make no attempt to cover himself with roses in any version of the tale. He was nothing if not brutally honest.

As the day moved on, she worked her way through Seifer's sudden, unexpected appearance, his even more surprising revelation that the supposedly peaceful protest group had been stockpiling illegal weapons (presumably for an all-out assault on the Gardens) and then to the machinations of the Dollet politician who had been masterminding the scheme in return for a larger slice of the political pie when the Gardens were all abolished and monster control was handed over to the armies of the respective countries.

Xu didn't interrupt, except occasionally to clarify points or to ask for more detail.

Eventually Quistis reached the point when a sudden systems failure forced herself and Balamb's most famous mistake to shepherd a group of armed and frightened civilians through a hospital of monsters, and finished it off with a non-committal "and then you know the rest."

Xu tapped her pencil on the desk. "That seems to be in order." She leant forwards and flicked the recorder off, shaking the fingers of her writing hand with a grimace as she did so. "We'll cross-check it, of course, and you'll have to be available for any additional questioning, but it should be okay." She reached down and produced a flask of water from the depths of her bag. "Here you go."

"Thanks." Quistis said weakly. She touched the fingers of one hand to her throat, wincing a little, and then drank.

Xu smiled. "Don't look so worried. Squall wanted to extend you a formal apology for our poor intelligence, but some of the bureaucrats in the committee vetoed it. I knew you wouldn't be happy, but at least you won't be blamed for something that we should have known about before you were even sent in. You did a great job. From all accounts, nearly seventy-five per cent of the resistance group were rescued."

"Only seventy-five?" Quistis said, hopelessly.

"We took them to the military hospital linked to Galbadia Garden. It was closest, and they have the facilities for such a large number of people. They'll be interrogated, and then hopefully released. Unfortunately the leader was on the fatality list, but those who survived are very grateful towards Balamb. Without us- and you- they would have been monster meat, and they know it. Galbadia are dealing with most of the paperwork as a favour- after all, it was their intelligence that turned out to be wrong."

Quistis dragged a finger round the rim of the water glass. It left a faint, but discernable, mark. She looked up, the sudden movement blurring her vision for a second as the Cura began to wear off. "So what next?"

"We're done. Get some sleep."

"What happens to Seifer, I mean?" Quistis asked, gambling on her concern being translated as worry for a mission gone pear-shaped by Xu. They'd skirted around the issue during her interrogation, Quistis keeping to the bare minimum in case their stories happened to conflict.

_Should I tell her? _

Half of Quistis's brain urged her to confess, simply because it would be so pleasant to confide in somebody who might understand. She was getting tired of having to lie all the time.

_Somebody who might understand….No.__ Xu won't. She hates Seifer. And he doesn't like her. I suppose I've at least got to discuss it with him before I decide to go public_.

_Admit it-you're embarrassed_

_No. I've got my own reasons. Number one: Seifer will probably die if any of my friends figure out that I'm sleeping with him. They'll all assume that he took advantage of me, and they won't listen. Significant parts might be removed. _

Xu looked thoughtful. "Technically, I suppose, Squall initiated a trial by combat and won. He could have killed him, but he didn't. Don't know why not. I talked to him about this earlier, but I think he's got his mind made up. But practically, Squall gets to say what happens to him now."

Quistis raised an eyebrow, fractionally, encouraging Xu to keep talking. _I'm not sure how Seifer's going to take this news… _

"And technically, according to the old duel laws-" Xu continued.

"They went out years ago!" Quistis said indignantly.

"They've never been repealed. Kind of a legal loophole. Anyway, _technically_, if anyone has a problem with this they're welcome to try to do the exact same thing. I hope Squall's thought of a way to deal with the queue." she said, not without humor.

Quistis groaned. "Martine? Last time I checked he was still angry."

Xu smiled. "Yes. I don't think many people know about this rule. It took me a few hours to come up with it, and I wouldn't have done it for anyone except Squall. Frankly, I think Seifer should have stayed dead. But the last thing we need is Martine at our gates with an axe to grind, demanding some kind of payback duel."

Quistis thought of the old Galbadian commander, a man pushing sixty but still with the same powerful and finely honed sense of revenge that had led him to hunt Seifer down in the first place. "I don't think he's a gunblade genius and I doubt Seifer would have Squall's self-control."

"Exactly." Xu said. She looked suddenly thoughtful. ""I have to confess I gave Squall a lecture, though."

"Did he listen?" Quistis asked, sceptically. The atmosphere in the room seemed to have changed from a more formal interrogation to a rather cosy chat, and she was happy to indulge Xu's rarely exhibited lust for gossip.

Up to a point, anyway.

Xu smiled. "It's hard to tell."

Quistis shrugged. "I agree it's a controversial move. But at the end of the day-we're mercenaries."

Xu didn't look convinced. Quistis tried again. "Put a leash on him that doesn't insult him and he'll be your best weapon"

"Just as long as he's pointing in the right direction….I wouldn't have a problem with him if he was just useful." Squall's secretary inspected her nails. Each was filed into a perfect oval, painted a deep gold that matched her uniform trim perfectly. On anyone else, including herself, Quistis would have dismissed it as vanity, but Xu knew the value of making a good impression. And she saw a lot of people.

"Xu."

"Okay. I'd have _less_ of a problem with him if he was useful. As well as being a jerk, but he's not."

"So make him."

"Huh." Xu looked thoughtful. "What about a timetable? Maybe Trooping The Colour would be a good idea."

Quistis searched her memory. "Balamb's flag ceremony? That's only twice a year. The next one's not for weeks. Why?"

"Historically, it used to remind average soldiers what their flag looked like so they could return to it in battle. I think Seifer might need reminding." She slid out from the bench and stood up. "Come on. I don't know why we've wasted so much time talking about that jerk anyway. I've got a load of work to do, and you need to get to bed." She stowed the flask and tape recorder in her bag. "Come on."

Quistis stood.

Xu slung the bag over her shoulder and then turned round again, neatly trapping Quistis behind the desk. Quistis halted, unsure if the movement was accidental or intentional

"Just one thing-why did you say Seifer came to help you?"

Quistis pasted an innocent expression onto her face. "He never said. I'm guessing it was a trace of Garden loyalty. Or something." She raised her chin, daring Xu to doubt her.

It must have worked, because the shorter SeeD moved away, waving her free hand dismissively. "After all these years? Get real. Oh well, I'm sure Squall'll get to the bottom of it."

"Yes."

"Ours not to reason why."

"That, too."


	3. Chapter Two: Mainstream

Recovering The Satellites.

They drew their weapons, read the rules, sent the rebels back to school

They'll book you for the next crime

Catch you in the nick of time

Are you going to swim the mainstream?

Mainstream-Thea Gilmore

Chapter Two: Mainstream.

Several hours after Zell had disappeared, Seifer's morning of boredom was finally interrupted by the delivery of food. He had the mattress balanced against the wall when the door opened, searching idly for any contraband alcohol, cigarettes or pornography left by the previous occupant of the room.

There was no particular reason for his actions, only the vague thought in his mind that discovery of any of the three would make time pass faster. And in Seifer's experience, just about the only place to hide anything in a Garden dorm room was inside the mattress or resting between it and the springs. As the handle turned he'd just come to the conclusion that maybe the Garden authorities also knew this useful fact. There was fuck all there.

As the handle turned and the door began to open, he slammed the mattress down on the bed and sat on it, ignoring the disarranged sheets. A quick glance was sufficient to inform him that the food-bearer wasn't Zell, and he said nothing as the cadet, a thin youth in his early twenties, handed him a plastic plate and some blunt metal cutlery before walking out again.

Seifer and poked through his meal with an expression of first disbelief and then of mild curiosity as he shook the spoon free of an entangling piece of rubbery flesh. "What the fuck is this?"

His only answer was the click of the door swinging shut.

Seifer said "Bastards." vaguely and then went back to exploring his food.

Owing to the relative lack of fertile, non-creature-infested land, it wasn't a surprise that most Balamb consumables were manufactured out of bits of monsters. It was something you got used to. Most cooks got pretty good at hiding the taste. Today it looked like they hadn't even tried.

_What happened? The food wasn't great two years ago, but it sure as hell wasn't this bad._

Seifer looked down at his bowl again. He twirled a tentacle round his fork thoughtfully, noting that there seemed to be more tentacle than was rightfully possible.

_That's probably why Dincht likes the hotdogs so much-'cause the whole point of sausages is that you can't tell what they're made out of…_

He supposed that there was a slim chance Squall might try to have him poisoned, but doubted it. Poison wasn't Leonhart's style. He looked down again at his plate, knife poised to stab anything that moved, and tried to decide what the hell it was supposed to be.

_Calamari?_

Once he'd put a possible name to the dish, it didn't look quite as revolting as before. It was against Seifer's personal code of ethics to refuse either a meal or a fight. You just never knew.

_Oh, well. Try anything once._

He chewed. To his surprise it wasn't all that bad -as long as you took care not to look at what you were putting into your mouth. And ignored the unpleasant rubbery texture.

He was just swallowing the last remnants of his meal as the door swung open again.

This time, it _was_ Zell.

Seifer gave him a wolfish grin. "Come right in, Dincht. This food's fuckin' awful. Could do with some chicken to finish it off."

The bitching defiance was only half habit. Seifer was feeling vulnerable, and for good reason. One of the principles of war they'd been made to learn sometime in their first term at Garden was that the best defence was a good offence and Seifer had taken it to heart. He always fought back, and to make doubly sure fought before he was even attacked.

It was an approach that had always gained him more enemies than friends

Zell scowled. His assignment was obviously getting to him. Even his hair looked more defensive than normal. "Get up. You've got an appointment."

"With what? Squall? Quistis? Hell, _death_?"

But he went, anyway, just because he was curious and there wasn't anything else to do.

It proved to be Squall, of course. Seifer worked this out about two seconds into the elevator that led to the third floor and the headmaster's office. He spent the rest of the time peeling gilt off the handrails behind his back as he tried to think of something to say to the man who he'd almost killed.

_He challenged me to a fair fight, could have executed me, and didn't. No matter how much that pisses me off, that means I owe him._

Seifer worked the problem over in his mind, scowling as he did so. It wasn't a thought he particularly enjoyed. In the SeeD's position, he'd have done exactly the same thing-only he wouldn't have pulled any punches at the last. And worse, he'd probably have laughed while he did it. Or at least said something ironic.

_Hell, at least I _admit_ I'm a bastard._

The lift doors hissed open. Seifer, absorbed in thought, didn't remember to turn round, and got a venomous glare for his oversight. Feeling like a complete idiot, he spun and followed his escort down the red carpet to the pair of ornate double doors that barred the headmaster's office from the rest of the world. A small and plain desk sat to the left of the doors. It was empty.

_Hn__. Wonder who's got the job of Squall's secretary now? Don't envy them, whoever they are._

The circle of SeeDs surrounding Seifer spread out in a half-circle around him, covering every exit route except the office door. It was pretty clear where he was supposed to go, so he stuffed his hands into his pockets and stepped into the headmaster's office.

The room was pleasant, light and airy courtesy of its position high in Garden's roof. Canopies and wall hangings decorated three of its four walls, designed to protect the imposing raised desk at the back of the room from the sun. The shade created an avenue of sorts, an elaborate corridor centring on the Commander's desk. The effect was emphasized by some sort of stencil glued to the empty panel of glass behind the counter. Its marks resembled the frame of a picture. Part of the curling decoration appeared to have been scratched off.

The effect was completely wasted on Seifer, who didn't notice the decor at all. His attention was focused on the man seated behind the table, the man dressed in scuffed black leather over an outsize white dress shirt. The man who looked oddly ill at ease in the opulent surroundings, as if he'd much rather be doing something else.

Squall.

Headmaster, rival, enemy, foster brother….it should be illegal for one opponent to mean so much….

Seifer's escort seemed to have left him at the door. He walked down the red carpet, sauntering just a bit, if only to keep up appearances. It masked the stiffness of his first proper duel in two years. And hopefully, it would piss Squall off no end.

He reached the red carpet in front of the desk with no mishaps. Leonhart didn't look up.

Seifer glanced around.

It became quickly apparent that they were alone. There was an empty metal chair resting on the dais in front of Squall's desk. Squall still didn't look up or invite him to sit, so Seifer stepped up to the platform, hooked one boot behind a spindly chair leg to pull towards him and sat down anyway.

The door closed behind him with a soft creak.

Seifer resisted the urge to look around, to see whether any of the SeeDs had remained to watch over him. He stretched both long legs out in front of him and slumped down in his seat, raising his chin just a little to meet Squall's eyes.

Squall didn't look up, giving Seifer a good view of dusty brown hair. He appeared to be reading some kind of paper. After staring at Squall for a good thirty seconds without the other man appearing to move, the ex-knight got bored and twisted round in his seat to examine the office. It hadn't changed.

Somehow, in his two-year tenure, Squall had managed to avoid stamping his personality upon any of the furnishings. The pictures were the same old graduation photographs and letters from impressed clients that had been displayed back when Cid had been the headmaster. The polished desk held a framed photograph, angled away from Seifer so he couldn't see the picture, a small, dog-eared book, some stationery and a Kings Of Leon CD.

_Bo-ring._

He listened to the footsteps of the SeeD escort that had delivered him slowly fading away and tried to think about what to say. It was a new sensation. Seifer usually said whatever came first in his brain the second that he opened his mouth, but this was a special situation. Maybe he could cut some kind of deal.

_Hell, fuck you, you know, I've got better things to do than sit here and take your shit anyway, just drop me off at the next city, please, and we'll forget this ever happened._

He shook his head, slightly. Squall still didn't look up.

_That's never going to work._

He tried again.

_Squall, give me a job, some kind of power, people to boss around, and, oh yeah, let me screw one of your best friends, or I walk…and then- what? Shit. Deep down I guess I really am a knight. All I ever wanted to do was fight, maybe quest a little here and there. But if I do it by myself, things go to shit. I need Garden. _

_I need the money._

_I need Quistis, but I'd rather have nothing at all than beg._

Squall still ignored him.

Seifer realised that commanding the Garden hadn't made his old rival any more talkative. He fidgeted on the metal chair, crossing one leg over the other to find a comfortable position. Parts of the frame were pressing into parts of him which ached.

He was uncomfortable, and in more ways than one.

At the back of his mind was the fact that he owed Squall- for letting him live, for saving Edea, hell, probably for saving the world. It made him angry. Like if he ignored the debt, maybe it would go away, and he wouldn't have to owe his worst enemy any more. He sighed.

"Hell, Leonhart, why'd you ask me here if all you're going to do is fucking ignore me?"

Nothing.

Seifer tried again, switching to a light conversational tone, for maximum annoyance. "You know, it must really suck to be promoted for the one thing you're good at, right? And then you spend your life stuck behind a desk, can't fight, can't go _anywhere_ without somebody noticing."

Squall didn't react.

Seifer continued, fishing for some kind of reaction. "Watching people doing the job you love. It must be a pain in the ass. Does the power get to you? Does….." He trailed off, swallowing the sentence already in his throat.

_Does Rinoa like it?_

Remembering that he didn't want to mention Rinoa to Squall. Didn't even want to think about Rinoa.

Button-pushing, again. It was something he'd always been good at. And he'd always enjoyed teasing Leonhart, back in the mists of time.

"Shut up." Squall said, quietly.

It wasn't the authority in his voice that bothered Seifer. It was the volume, like Leonhart didn't need to shout. This annoyed Seifer, mostly because he'd always considered shouting commands one of the perks of unlimited power. He fell silent for a second and then decided he wasn't going to take any shit from Squall.

"I'm surprised you bothered to drag me up here. Doesn't it take five minutes to call Galbadia up and have them send a car?"

"I'm not going to call Galbadia." Squall said, quietly.

His comment didn't surprise Seifer one bit. Squall would never have challenged him to a duel if he'd meant to turn him over to Martine. He'd be kicking his heels in a nice cell right now instead of sitting up here in a relatively comfy chair and waiting for Squall to notice him. He coughed and said "I just want to get this straight. Not now? Or not at all? I'm not going to stay here if you're going to hang a death sentence over my head twenty-four-seven."

Squall looked thoughtful. "There is one other option. Aside from staying."

Seifer raised one eyebrow, intrigued. "What?"

"See that door over there? Walk through it and you'll never hear from Garden again."

_What door?_

Seifer leant back in his chair, wincing as he did so, and followed Squall's gaze to a small hatch set into the side of the headmaster's office. It was half-covered by one of the ubiquitous cream draperies, maybe one of the reasons why he hadn't noticed it before.

He looked at Squall, at the door and then back at Squall again. "What's the catch?"

"There isn't one."

Seifer filed this comment under 'officially too good to be true' and leant forwards in his chair. The front two legs hit the carpet with a thud. "Mind if I have a look?"

Squall gave him a flat stare. A faint breeze from an air conditioning unit somewhere in the office stirred the fur on his jacket collar and did nothing to hide the coldness in his eyes. "Whatever, Almasy."

Seifer shrugged, stood with as much dignity as he could muster (not a lot, given borrowed clothes and a seriously scarred sense of self-esteem) and walked over to the door. It was set into a heavy metal frame and made of thick wooden panelling, just like all the other bits of Cid's -no, Squall's- office that weren't glass. Most importantly, as Seifer tried the handle, he realised that it wasn't locked.

_You have to be kidding._

He frowned, and turned back to Squall. "So, let me get this straight. I just walk out there, and I can go? No soldiers after me again, nothing?"

Squall gave him a have-you-not-been-listening glare. At least, Seifer thought that was what it was. It looked suspiciously like all of Squall's other poker faces.

"Yes."

Seifer looked at the door again, checking for booby traps, triplines, explosives, suspicious wires. There weren't any.

Seifer's well developed sense of paranoia corrected him, pointing out that if there were any traps, they were just extremely well-hidden. He reached out and put his hand on the doorknob anyway. It was extremely cold, cold as ice, in fact, and that should have given him a clue. It didn't.

He frowned and looked down, tanned skin ridged with scars pale against the shining gold. The door handle gleamed tantalisingly, greasy with polish. He could see roads reflected in its shining surface. Roads to freedom.

_Roads to anywhere but here.._

He didn't have to put up with all of Garden's shit any more. He didn't have to wish he'd never come back, didn't have to sort out the ..thing, with Quistis. He could just….leave.

_It won't hurt, just to have a look…._

He risked a look back. Squall was watching him with interest, chin resting on two leather-gloved hands.

Seifer told himself that he was just checking, in the spirit of adventure. He twisted his wrist, the metal cold on his ungloved palm, and opened the door.

Onto nothing.

There was no corridor, no stairs, no road to freedom, nothing except white emptiness. Seifer looked up to more of the same, looked down, and had to swallow to stop himself from throwing up. Slightly below his line of vision a glowing white ring floated through the air, tethered to the ground by long white ropes. Balamb's energy shield system. Below him spread the expanse of Garden, shrunk down to toytown size.

_Fuck. Of course. We're in the headmaster's office. There _is_ no way out, except the lift. The lift, and this very long drop._

_The sneaky bastard._

The gap in front of him felt high and very cold. Seifer carefully took a step back, reaching for the door handle as he did so. Its own weight had swung the door out in its frame. It had somehow slipped from his grasp and was dangling a foot away over the void.

Not close enough.

Seifer swallowed. He didn't mind heights, but anyone would have a problem with this long a drop, and he'd fallen way too many times. In fact, now that he thought about it, the distance that he'd fallen seemed so much higher that the amount he'd actually climbed. But then, this wasn't the time.

It was true that he didn't have to close the door, but somewhere along the way it had become a point of honour. Fuck Squall. Fuck him for offering hope, for making him believe he was free to go. Just another illusion.

He inched out, the steel toecaps on his boots feeling very heavy, and stretched for the cold brass handle, remembering too late that he was using his bad wrist, the one Kadowaki had told him not to use.

Did Squall think this was all some kind of game? For fuck's sake.

His fingers touched the handle, wrapped round it and jerked inwards. For a second he had a horrible vision of it swinging out further and wrenching him out of the office, leaving him dangling like a hooked fish.

Squall would probably think it was funny.

He wrenched again. The door's hinges creaked, fighting the pull of gravity. It swung closed, excruciatingly slowly. A third pull slammed it shut. Seifer fumbled the catch, and he was safe.

He leaned against the wall for a second and breathed out, half-hidden from Squall's view by the draperies. And then his eyes opened and the anger inside him ignited and he stormed out to face Squall's desk, trying to forget the feeling of vertigo that almost had him grasping for every available stable surface.

This time he didn't bother with the chair. Boots ringing less impressively than he would have liked on the carpet, he marched right up to Squall's desk and slammed the palms of his hands flat down onto the table. The impact of wood hitting skin hurt, but not as much as the quick flare of pain in his wounded right hand. Seifer didn't care. He was too angry.

"That's. Not. A. Choice."

Squall looked up and met his eyes for the first time, shadowed grey irises under blade-straight brows. "It's a choice. Just not one you'd like to make."

"Yeah, very funny, Leonhart. If I was going to jump I would have done it two years ago."

Squall gestured at the chair. Seifer ignored him. His stomach lurched, reminding him of that long, cold, fall.

_Bastard. Serve him right if I did throw up all over his precious desk._

"There's always a choice."

Seifer frowned, brows meeting. He glowered at Squall. "So that's it. I stay here, or I _die_?"

"Not necessarily, Almasy."

"So that was all just to make some kind of point?"

Squall shrugged.

"Damn you, Leonhart. I thought this motherfucking soldier farm had changed and it-"

Squall cut him off in mid-tirade. "Quistis said you helped her. That you said you'd come back with her."

Seifer stepped back, slightly, shoulders settling as his muscles relaxed. "Yeah. I did. You talked to her?"

"Yes. Talk to me. I need to hear your story before anything can happen"

Seifer considered "Like what?"

"Anything."

The ex-knight took his hands of Squall's desk, feeling rather stupid. Returning to the chair seemed a bit too much like following orders for his taste, so he leant against Squall's desk and folded his arms.

_What I really, really, want to happen, right now….is a cigarette…._

"So. Time compression." Squall said, curtly.

Seifer frowned. "Yeah. Quistis mentioned a few things. Looks like I went in a bit earlier than you guys, though. Still came out the same time as you lot."

He didn't say that Quistis had told him in the early hours of the morning one day, when it had been too hot and he hadn't been able to sleep. Again. "So I worked for a while."

"What did you do?"

Squall's comment, sharp as a blade edge in a duel, made Seifer think. It was s tricky one, after all. He hadn't exactly been a crook. And he'd never been a criminal, because he'd never been caught.

"Uh-I was in the removal business."

In a way it was almost true. He'd been paid quite well for removing obstacles from the path of wealthy people. Obstacles came in two flavours, monstrous, or human. You didn't get many monsters in a city.

Thankfully Squall seemed to be satisfied. "Where?"

Somewhere in Southern Trabia. Middle of nowhere. And no, before you ask me, I don't know why there. Just was. Went to ground in the nearest town. "

Squall's silence grew deeper.

Seifer scratched at his scar. "Yeah, so you know what I ended up doing there. But go figure. You're fucking mercenaries. This motherfucking school doesn't give you many life skills at the end of the day, but it damn sure tells you how to kill things. So that's what I did. And yeah, I was good at it. And yeah, it paid well. Not as well as you'd think, but hell, I wasn't in a position to complain. And I'd still be there now if Martine hadn't started posting my face on every vertical surface. But he did. So I ran. Went to Trabia. And then he went after me. You know the rest."

"Lucky." Squall said, noncommittally. Seifer couldn't work out whether or not he was being sarcastic or not. What could he do about it? Break the table? Smash a window? Jump across the desk and rearrange Leonhart's face for him? Get real.

He kicked at the table and thought about Quistis.

"What next? We know about the Trabian mission. Little more fuzzy on recent events."

"I'm getting to it." Seifer muttered. He chewed his nails and then stopped; because the taste of stale nicotine was making him feel sick. "Before you ask, Quistis didn't know I was alive. So don't blame her."

_Hyne- I'm getting defensive. Shutupshutupshutup…._

Squall said nothing. Seifer hoped that meant he hadn't noticed.

"So like I said, I came back. Worked down the coast to that little seaside town."

"Hana."

"Yeah, right. Monster–slaying, minimum wage jobs. Nobody noticed. Maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they were all fucking blind. It was like there was this great big blind spot, like they'd decided to forget about the war, how they got their asses saved by a bunch of kids who weren't even old enough to shave." He gave Squall's smooth chin a critical glance, searching for any signs of growing stubble. "Guess I was just one of the things they'd decided to forget. Lucky me."

"Whatever, Almasy. " Squall muttered.

"I'm getting there. As for the rest, there's nothing to tell. I heard there was a SeeD in trouble. Must have just been nosy. So I went."

"That easy?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't wonder if there was anything strange going on?"

"Nope. Don't know if you noticed, Leonhart, but logic never was my strong point. Call it atoning for my sins if you're feeling biblical, but don't spread the word around. I'd never live it down. Got a reputation to keep."

Seifer crossed everything he could cross and several things he hadn't known he could. In some kind of twisted way, he was enjoying this. After all, he'd finally found a way to steal centre stage again, instead of settling for some lame-ass sidekick role. He though he'd hit just the right note of brusqueness, bravado and bad language but he wasn't quite convinced that he'd managed to pull it off.

Squall's expression never changed. He didn't look as if he was inclined to be talkative.

Seifer scowled. "So who's after me?"

"Technically, everyone. But people forgot a lot of things after the wars, and one thing they decided to forget was the sorceress. And her knight. Edea's…" there was a long pause "safe."

"Quistis said she wasn't right."

"She isn't. But you'd know that."

It wasn't a question.

Seifer looked down at the desk, searching for something to fix on, just to avoid Squall's eyes. Standing, the picture on Squall's desk was just about visible, if upside down. A pretty, slender girl, smiling teasingly towards the camera with her dark hair flying in the wind. Rinoa Heartilly.

Seifer wondered that was still her name, or whether Squall had managed to string enough words together to propose. From what he remembered, they'd been pretty into each other during the wars, and that was another unpleasant mental image.

_Rinoa. Edea. Sorceresses. Knights. Fuck'em._

He gave Squall a flat glare. "Don't know what you mean. It's all a blur."

He wished it was. No more midnight awakenings, sheets tangled and Quistis spitting hair. No more moments when the world seemed to slip sideways in the dark, taking him with it, dragging him down through the mud of all that he'd been and failed to be.

He wondered if it was the same for Squall. He tended to forget that the man sitting in front of him was possibly the only other surviving sorceress' knight in existence, but then again, their situations were probably a little different. Seifer assumed Squall probably knew what he was getting himself into -unlike himself, who'd only thought he did.

Looking at Squall now, Seifer didn't doubt that Squall knew exactly where Rinoa was, what she was doing and how fast he could get to her if he needed to. His own connection was a little vaguer. He could sense that Edea was alive, and unhappy.

He'd never tried to reach for more. After all he didn't want to be reminded of the wars. And if one of the things he had to forget was their gentle matron, shit happened.

"Convenient."

Seifer ran one hand through his hair, swallowing to remove the taste of blood from his throat. He surreptitiously wiped a hand across his mouth. It came away clean.

_How the hell can you live with this, knowing what Rinoa could become?_

He changed the subject. "Galbadia. They'll want a trial."

"They can't."

Seifer snorted in disbelief. He shifted his weight on the edge of the desk. The wooden ornaments weren't getting any more comfortable. "You're not telling me you're going to protect me."

"I don't have to. I had Xu look some things up. Charges of war crimes only apply if they're against civilian targets. And as for the rest, if Balamb drops charges-"He looked away from Seifer, perhaps remembering D-district "-you're clear."

"And you'll drop charges?"

"We might"

Seifer narrowed his eyes. "What's in it for you?"

Squall just shrugged. Seifer was getting very bored of his non-conversation.

"So what happens now?"

"That depends on you, Almasy."

"Depends on what."

"I have a few conditions."

_Surprise, surprise. _Seifer hoped that they didn't include celibacy. He sighed, realising that this was about the best offer he was ever going to get. "Hit me."

Squall sighed "One, don't cause any more trouble."

"And if I do?"

"You'll wish you hadn't. You're subject to court-martial and disciplinary rulings the same as any other SeeD from the minute you leave this room."

Seifer hadn't really expected anything else. "Go on."

"Two, you're not allowed to talk to any cadet under the rank of SeeD. Civilian staff are okay, but not the trainees. Three, you can't leave Balamb Garden-"

"WHAT?"

"Until your case is reviewed, or when obeying an express order issued by a SeeD of superior rank. Subject to subsequent behaviour."

Seifer recoiled off the desk, eyes already searching for an exit route. "Fuck you if you think I'm going to stay here."

"Almasy, betraying the Gardens carries a fixed penalty. Death by firing squad."

Seifer subsided.

Squall carried on. "Four, no junctioning. Magic, or GFs. And you can't carry a weapon. And that's all."

"That's _all_?"

"Think of it as conditions of bail."

Seifer scowled. "So I'm confined to quarters. In a military school, and I can't talk to kids or carry a weapon?"

"What did you expect? It's better than prison."

"Only just."

Squall sighed. "Don't make me regret this. We need fighters. We still haven't wiped out all the creatures from that Lunar Cry two years ago."

He didn't say _the one you caused_. Didn't have to.

"Right. I'll be fuck all use to you if I can't even use Hyperion."

"Give it time. I need to know I can trust you. I'm taking more of a risk than you know."

Seifer snorted. "Believe me, I know exactly how much of a risk you're taking. So what if I go by your rules?"

Part of him accepted the challenge while another wondered exactly what Leonhart was playing at. _It wouldn't be so bad if Squall didn't know what happened last time I did exactly the fuck I wanted._

It stung. Squall was being fair again, and Seifer hated him for it. "You don't have to do this."

Squall shrugged. "One more thing?"

"What? You want my soul?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk to Rinoa."

Now there was a surprise. "Would you?"

The defiance came naturally. Two seconds ago, Seifer would rather have chewed nails than get within fifty meters of Rinoa. Sorceresses? You could keep them.

"So I can't talk to kids, or Rinoa, can't fight, can't leave the Garden. Anything else?"

"I said you couldn't leave Balamb.."

Seifer waited, hoping that he meant the town, not the Garden.

"There's one other option. You could take a trip to Centra."

Seifer frowned, trying to work out whether this was an elaborate euphemism for 'sleeping with the fishes.' "And what?"

"See Edea."

The words hit like bombshells. "Why? Aren't you afraid I'll turn again? Be her knight?"

"I think she'd like to see you. That's all." Leonhart said mildly.

Seifer pulled the chair towards him and sat down on it, heavily. "Tough shit. I'm not going."

Squall raised one eyebrow. "Why?"

"You guys say she's got problems. She sure as hell doesn't need another. Doesn't need me making everything worse for her again. Reminding people." He searched his pockets. "Got a cigarette?"

"No."

The ex-knight changed the subject. "So. What about the exam?"

Squall shook his head. "No"

"What, you don't think I'll pass the test or something?"

"You know the rules, Seifer. If you don't pass the year you're eighteen, you don't pass, period. There's a lot of jobs in Garden. We'll find you something. Zell'll sort it."

_Ah, great._

Seifer looked at the table like he was thinking about trying to smoke it. "Shit. Anything else?"

"Just don't eat a lot. There's a food shortage at the moment."

Ah. So that explained the deadly food. He knew that Garden had a small garden, a rare luxury to provide fresh food for the soldiers, in between the monster meat. And fish. Living this close to the ocean, there was always fish. Fish, and chocobos.

"What's up? Zell eat all the hotdogs?"

Squall gave him a long, cold look. "There's been a cold winter. And a hot summer. It happens."

Seifer, a man who knew about as much about agriculture as the average fish knew about bicycle repair, nodded vaguely.

"One more thing.."

"What?" Seifer refused to add' Sir' to the sentence as a matter of principle.

"Zell told me you've been pestering Quistis. Don't. It wouldn't be a good idea"

"Is that a threat?"

"No. More like advice. Quistis can look after herself."

Seifer smiled "Fine. What now?"

"I've assigned you a room." He tossed a keycard across the table. "There'll be everything you need. Don't try to leave; people are watching you, even if it doesn't seem like it. Meet Xu outside, she'll give you your timetable."

It seemed that thanks were in order. Seifer didn't bother to give them. He nodded once, curtly, and rose from the chair, scooping up the keycard from the table as he did so. The light caught a colour coded strip on the card, glinting green.

Seifer scowled. Cadets had identity cards striped red for Restricted Access. SeeDs got cards with blue strips, allowing them access to hidden areas of the library, the storerooms and certain other zones deemed too hazardous for mere cadets. He wasn't sure what code green meant, but he was willing to bet it meant Incredibly Restricted. He'd be lucky if he could get into his own bedroom. Much less Quistis's.

"I can get into the Training Centre with this, right?"

Squall shook his head.

"Fuck, can't I even kill monsters?"

"What with?"

Seifer had to admit that Leonhart had a point. He turned away in disgust and then swung back as the glint of sunlight on sharpened metal caught his eye. A dark shape stood propped up against one of the ubiquitous windows, half-hidden by the desk.

He thought of Squall's Lionheart and then dismissed the idea out of hand. Squall wore his sword on his hip all the time.

_Never though Squall was the type to collect weapons. But hell, it's his funeral. _

Squall regarded him with a puzzled look on his face, no doubt trying to work out why his opponent was squinting into the shadows of his office. Seifer ignored him. Not the Lionheart..but the same shape..

Anybody else might have mistaken the weapon for a simple Galbadian gunblade, but Seifer knew that sleek silhouette as well as the back of his hand Better, in fact, given his penchant for wearing gloves.

Hyperion.

Strangely enough, it wasn't the fact that Squall had kept his gunblade that annoyed him. After all, he'd lost, and deserved to. It was the fact that his rival had ignored his most prized possession, just tossed it in a corner in a pile of junk and paperwork.

If their roles had been reversed he'd have displayed Squall's Lionheart over the fireplace for weeks. There were no fireplaces at Garden-the sophisticated maintenance systems didn't allow for roaring fires-but he'd have got one installed just for Squall.

"Almasy?" Squall's voice, though soft-spoken, had a dangerous edge.

_Yeah, fuck. It's nothing I didn't sign up for. Shit, if I'd just died life would have been so much easier._

_Doing the right thing shouldn't be this fucking hard. _

_After all, that's why I don't._

There wasn't anything left to say, so Seifer said nothing. Instead he swung round and walked out, part of him expecting Squall to call him back. By the time he was half way through the doors, he'd guessed that it wasn't going to happen. By the time he reached the lift and hit the button for the ground floor, he _knew_ it wasn't going to happen.

There seemed to be no other SeeDs around.

_Hmm.__ That was easy…_

"Almasy."

He mashed the lift keypad viciously.

"_Almasy_."

It didn't sound like Squall. Seifer turned.

Xu stared at him exasperatedly from behind the secretary's desk.

Seifer laughed "You're going to get it when Squall's PA comes back."

"I AM Squall's secretary, asshole."

Seifer pressed the buttons again, bringing the lift to a halt somewhere between the third and fourth basement levels, swore, and gave up. He switched his attention from the stricken keyboard to Xu and said "He said…."

Xu interrupted, glaring at Seifer from over the top of the computer monitor. "Who?"

"Squall."

"Who?"

"Squall." Seifer frowned, trying to work out where this was going. "You know, Squall Leonhart? Your boss?"

"You could at least use his title."

"Okay, Squall Leonhart, hero guy, commander of this dysfunctional shithole….." Seifer left off pressing buttons and sauntered up to Xu's desk, giving her his best flirtatious leer and ignoring the lift keyboard behind him, which was flashing red and giving off sulphurous smoke. "Said you might have something for me"

Xu slid a stack of forms across the table. "Right, Sign here, here and here." She slapped a pen down on top of the pile of paper.

Seifer signed, illegibly. "That was quick."

Xu smiled. "That's just to prove I've given you the forms. The top three are requisition slips. Take them to the quartermaster, but make sure you detach the bottom blue copies and keep them. The yellow copies need to go in the box outside the dormitory entrance."

"That's it, then?"

"No. Fill in parts eleven, nine, eight and ten of the green forms, and all of the purple ones; unless you answered yes to questions 3a and 7b."

"Then what?"

"Then you have to do sections three and five of the purple forms and these extra pink flimsies." She slapped another pile of paper on top of the first and propped a SeeD manual on top of it all. "The rest of the paperwork's self-explanatory. Even to somebody of your intellect. It shouldn't take you more than……oh, about ten days. Enjoy."

Seifer picked up the pile of forms, testing the weight. "You're loving this."

Xu smiled sweetly. "Damn right."

"I really get on your tits, don't I?"

Xu nodded.

"Is this still the sorceress thing?"

"Yup. In addition….." she began to tick off points on her nails…"In a word, you're arrogant. Shameless, immoral, antisocial, irresponsible….you're dangerous. You've got an explosive temper and sometime it's going to go off again big time. You're a psychopath waiting to happen, and someday everyone will realise that it was a big mistake letting you live."

"And you'll say you knew me when, right?"

"Oh, shut up."

Seifer smirked.

Xu sighed and switched on her computer, typing in a nine-digit keycode without looking at the screen. "Quistis seems to think you helped her, over in Trabia. Me, I'm not convinced, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I won't make things too hard for you."

Seifer looked down at the pile of paperwork. "This is the easy way?"

"You're still here, aren't you? If Squall had been in his right mind, he'd have killed you."

"Guess it's lucky for me that you're not in charge, huh?"

"Yes" Xu hissed through gritted teeth. "Don't worry, I'll change his mind. Now get out of my sight before I do something we'll both regret. I'd hate to screw up my career for a loser like you."

"How much do they pay you for being Squall's glorified secretary?"

"I'm a _SeeD_. Which, might I remind you, is more than you are."

"You call that an insult?"

"No. An insult would be me telling you that you're a lying worthless waste of space and that our most esteemed commander must be mad to let you back in here. Pity that I'm far too self-possessed to let my feelings show, isn't it."

"Could have fooled me." Seifer picked up the sheaf of papers from the desk, pocketing one of Xu's biros as he went. Xu just snorted, obviously regarding him beneath her contempt. She didn't look up as he left the foyer, walking over to the lift doors.

A slight smell of smoke hung in the air. Screams drifted up the shaft.

Seifer shrugged and made for the emergency stairs. _Crappy__Garden__ technology._

He made it down to the first floor and halfway to the dormitories without anything more than a few hostile stares. After Xu's razor tongue, it was almost a relief. Seifer usually enjoyed annoying people, but even he had a limit. He walked aimlessly down the hall, bored but too bloody-minded to give up and go back and sit quietly in the room Squall had assigned him.

_Wonder where Quistis is?_

The thought was almost automatic. They'd been so long together in Trabia, sleeping together, fighting together, even just talking….

His hand found the keycard in his pocket, tracing the outline of the small plastic tag.

_I'll have to ask her what this means. I bet she'll find a way to sneak me into the training centre. It's not breaking the rules if I can get round them somehow. _

This example of lateral thinking was typical of Seifer, the kind of person who when faced with an impenetrable maze, would escape by demolishing all the walls.

He sighed and slouched down the corridor towards the first-level SeeD dormitories. There was no way of knowing exactly where Quistis's room was, but Seifer had a plan.

One, find the smallest, youngest cadet he could, preferably one who knew absolutely nothing about either the Sorceresses Wars or current events. Two, intimidate, threaten or charm them into telling him where Quistis's room was.

He looked around as he walked, thinking that, despite everything, it felt good to be back in Balamb. The standard Garden décor hadn't changed one bit. Institutional without being cheap, and scrupulously clean with the tiny embellishments and clever design features that hinted decorously of serious money. It was cool inside despite the summer warmth, air-conditioning set just a couple of notches below comfortable. He decided he'd have to organise himself another coat.

It was like coming home.

Seifer wondered idly whether to go to the training centre anyway and then decided against it. To train he needed a weapon, and that meant borrowing or begging some kind of equipment from the stores.

_No chance. At least not if Squall's got any sense at all.._

He didn't like being unarmed. It felt wrong enough to make him jumpy and the hostile glances from some of the cadets weren't doing anything to make him feel more at ease. There was nothing openly antagonistic for him to challenge, nobody was quite that stupid, but whispered comments and stares got boring fast. Squall would have made some kind of announcement, and, by the looks of it, everybody had listened.

Nobody was even going to give him an excuse for a fight….

_Pity._

He moved to the wall to let a group of trainees pass by. The five older cadets with them tried hard to pretend he didn't exist, but the children were curious. Their eyes followed him as they passed like commuters staring at some gruesome car crash. No doubt they'd heard.

"Hey, mister." one of the kids called out, resisting the nearest cadet's efforts to get her to shut up. "Didja really kill people?"

_Don't talk to any children_, Squall had said. Since when did he do what Leonhart told him?

Seifer gave a one-shouldered shrug and said " I guess." in a conversational tone of voice. He didn't bother to mention that any one of the fresh-faced teenaged cadets leading the group had almost certainly done the same.

"They said that…mmphmmphmmph"

Her speech was cut off as the cadet leading the group gave up on bribes, threats, extreme threats and finally death threats and clapped a hand over the kid's mouth

"Don't speak to him."

"Why not?..I.."

"Come on. I want to know what people say" Seifer gave the cadet, who looked about sixteen, his most charming grin.

It didn't work. The cadet just grabbed the kid by the arm and hustled her off. As she went she gave him a glare over her shoulder, a heady blend of two-thirds hostility and one-third fear.

_Heh__. Five minutes back and I'm getting my kicks teasing name-calling children and their nursemaids. Nothing annoys your enemies like forgiveness, huh Leonhart? I could have coped with an execution. .It doesn't take so long._

_This is going to need work. _

The bastard had to have some kind of secret motive, a hidden reason for letting him live, for going to all this trouble when it was blatantly obvious to anybody sane that the most Seifer would bring to Garden was more trouble….

He reached the dormitory door five minutes later, already mentally calculating the distance between his and Quistis's bedrooms and almost broke his foot kicking at the door to open it. Swearing imaginatively, he tried the handle. It still didn't open.

Seifer stepped back and looked at it, scowling. It had a keycard holder, and he was holding a keycard. It didn't require Quistis's IQ to work out how to open the door.

Wedging the paperwork under one armpit, Seifer dug one hand in his pocket for his key, flicked it out and turned it over, wondering how best to manage the tricky job of swiping a lock set at waist height while holding several piles of unbound forms that must weigh a good ten pounds. He'd just placed the edge of the card in the slot when a heavy hand descended on his shoulder.

"Hey, Almasy."

It was only then that he remembered that if Quistis's room was here then _they_ must be, too. Squall, Zell and all of the rest. Seifer had never made it out of the cadet dorms, but he'd heard that graduating to SeeD carried a few privileges, including a bed wide enough to actually sleep in, a mattress not made out of chickenwire and a really dumb uniform.

Seifer narrowed his eyes. "Irvine."

The tall Galbadian regarded Seifer with a mistrustful stare. He was dressed from head to toe in worn leather and suede, despite the heat, and wearing more jewellery than most women the ex-knight could think of. His long silver rifle hung over his shoulder. What was it called?

_Exeter__'s a stupid name for a weapon. It's like calling Hyperion "__Esthar__City__."_

He hadn't been particularly unpleasant to Seifer in Trabia, but there had been just too much dirty water under the bridges for Seifer to regard any of the SeeDs objectively.

The feeling appeared to be mutual.

Irvine said "You saw Squall?" He moved subtly, shifting Seifer away from the doors. His body language was still friendly and relaxed, but somehow Seifer got the feeling that the sniper was warning him off.

"Yeah." Seifer didn't volunteer any information. It was becoming painfully obvious that the SeeDs had the upper hand, and he was fast running out of ideas.

Irvine nodded at the keycard in Seifer's card. "He gave you that?"

"Yeah. Hyne, stop looking at me like I killed somebody and looted the body. Doesn't he tell you what's going on?"

"He told us. But that doesn't explain why you're down here hanging round the SeeD dorms."

Seifer thought for a second about lying, and then decided not to bother. "Looking for Quistis."

Irvine shook his head. "Uh-uh. No, you don't."

Seifer shifted position, tucking the pile of papers more securely under his arm. This way, if Irvine started on him, he reckoned he could have the whole lot over the balcony and both hands free before the cowboy expected it. "Why the hell not?"

"She doesn't want to see you. Here, _or_ at her office."

Seifer caught the word _office _and tucked it away in his head for future consideration. "Did she tell you that? She didn't, did she? She'll see me."

Irvine coughed. "No. Besides, it's Instructor Trepe. Not Quistis."

"What?"

"I said, call her Instructor Trepe, thank you. Not Quistis. And stop being so damn aggressive."

"I am not aggressive. Just watch it, you." Seifer snapped, indignantly. He wasn't sure whether or not getting into arguments with some of Leonhart's best friends counted as 'causing trouble' but he'd already broken one of the rules of his parole already, the one about not talking to children. And when you broke the rules, it was best to break them good and hard.

_Still…._

He sighed. "Just so you know, I didn't plan to behave the way I was behaving." It was about as sincere as he ever got.

Irvine watched him with an odd expression on his face, behind a curtain of hair. "Uh-huh?" He took a step forwards, shepherding Seifer further away from the doors. "So, what do you want with Quistis?"

Seifer made a Hyne-give-me-strength gesture with his free hand. "I just want to talk."

Well, maybe at first. His long-term plans definitely included less clothes, but talking would do for now.

Irvine gave him a humouring smile. "Look, no offence, but last time we saw you you weren't exactly user-friendly. You can't blame us for being protective."

So that was it. Seifer wasn't sure whether or not he preferred Zell's balls-out no-way speeches or the sniper's softly-softly approach. They both added up to the same equation, anyway. He wasn't going to see Quistis for a while

_At least, that's what they think….. _

Seifer shrugged and turned away. Let Kinneas think he'd given up. He tried to think of a few words to marshal in his defence. "I was eighteen. I bet you didn't do anything you want to remember when you were eighteen." He realised as the words left his mouth that it was just about the stupidest thing he'd said in a long time, up to and including '_What about if I come back to Garden."_

Irvine just stood there. He didn't look impressed.

Seifer sighed. "Oh yeah. You saved the world. From me. So just don't answer that." He scowled, taking stock of the situation.

Irvine had managed to position himself so his back was to the dormitory doors. He didn't look aggressive, lounging against the wall like it was some beach in Balamb, but it was pretty clear that Seifer wouldn't be getting through there any time soon.

"Answer me one question, Almasy?"

"Yeah? What?"

"What were you doing all that time away?"

Seifer shrugged, trying to think up something that didn't sound too pathetic. "I got abducted by little green aliens. They offered to take me back to their planet and make me their king but I told them no, 'cause I had to get back and atone for my crimes."

"Really."

"No."

Seifer turned away, fed up for once of confrontations. Zell, Kadowaki, Squall and then Irvine, it seemed like half of Garden thought he needed taking to task about his past misdeeds. And the nicotine withdrawal was getting worse. He would have happily tipped the contents of an ashtray into his mouth and chewed.

He turned back. "Hey, Irvine?"

"What?" The Galbadian's voice was lazy, almost slurred with that weird Galbadian plains accent that sounded as if he was trying to drink a bottle of rye whisky and french a chocobo, all at the same time

"Got any cigarettes?"

Normally he would never have tried to bum cigarettes from Irvine, but the situation was getting desperate. He hadn't smoked _anything_ for at least twenty four hours.

He would have sworn Irvine almost smiled, under that stupid hat. "No-smoking zone, Almasy."

"Yeah, yeah." Seifer was already heading back down the way he'd come.

He filled up the remainder of the morning with mindless chores. He picked up clothes that fit better than the ones he was wearing from the stores and basic equipment from the commissary. That took a few hours and after that he started on the forms, wedging the door to his room open with the SeeD manual so he'd have an advance warning of whoever was coming.

A quick leaf through the paperwork convinced him that Xu hadn't been joking. He'd read novels that were thinner than the stack of paper on his desk. All the forms seemed to be designed for maximum inconvenience and minimum efficiency, and it didn't really help that he was missing his birth certificate, passport, SeeD ID card and every other proof of identification he could possibly think of. Or that his preferred method of stress relief was tearing out every fifth sheet, folding it into a paper aeroplane, and throwing it out of the window.

Seifer made a mental note to go see Squall and explain to him while he technically didn't exist.

After an hour he'd had enough, and decided to hand what little he'd completed in and do the rest some time later. He left, and spent the rest of his afternoon ferrying copies of variously-coloured forms to what seemed like every department in Garden. They were greeted with one of three responses.

Number one, Seifer's least favourite, he categorised as 'polite unhelpfulness'. It wasn't personal, and maybe that was what annoyed him so much. The encounter went like this; he'd darken the door of some little office full of lowly paperpushers. They'd all immediately decide he wasn't going to be their problem, shunt him along to their superiors, and _they'd_ send him to somebody else. It took subtle threats of violence and a pointed comment to the tune of that he'd already _seen _Squall and he was sure the Commander wouldn't want to be bothered with such a trivial thing and would quite possibly demote, or ever defenestrate, whoever did, to get the first set stamped.

The second response was downright hostility. Seifer might have enjoyed this one far more than number one, but sadly, it was the subtle kind. To his infinite regret and growing frustration, it never quite reached the stage where he could legitimately have either filed a grievance or called somebody out. Most people didn't quite have the guts to be nasty to his famous face.

Number three was 'treated like an unexploded bomb'. True, it made him feel dangerous, and Seifer liked that, but nobody would talk to him, except the terminally curious. By the time Seifer reached his dorm room to start on the last set of forms he'd spent the last two years wandering the continent with amnesia, learning deadly martial arts from small saffron-robed monks up a mountain somewhere in Trabia, travelling into another dimension and on a mystic quest to throw a cursed piece of jewellery into a volcano.

He reached the doorway of his assigned room, and then stopped abruptly. The manual he'd used to wedge the door open was missing. He couldn't remember whether or not he'd left it locked, but light shone out from the cracks between the door and its frame. Light -and noise. There was the murmuring sound of hushed voices from inside.

Seifer frowned, and checked the room number again. Satisfied, he told himself sternly not to be too paranoid, and pushed it open.

He caught a blurred impression of light and people just before somebody grabbd hold of him. Seifer fought instinctively, face pressed against a starched uniform, his arms pinned to his sides. Somebody thumped him on the back with fists that felt like hammers.

Anyway, season's greetings, everybody. I recommend the fic 'It's a Wonderful Final Fantasy' by Tenshi No Korin for humorous holiday reading. Click on or cut and paste the link.

Reviewers: thank you all. I hadn't expected such a response. Hope you're not disappointed.

Amber Tinted: I hope RTS's as good as SDTC. I'd like it to be better, but we'll see how that works out.

Ardwynna Morrigu: Thanks. I love sarcasm and general cynicism.

Breaker-one: If I could think of as many sarcastic/witty lines on the spot instead of sitting in front of a computer then I'd probably be out doing something more exciting.

Ghost140: ta, glad to see you haven't picked up on anything glaringly OOC/obvious yet-always good

Kjata: thanks for your support:D

Nynaeve77: Ah, accents. Well, I'm not American, so I imagine the Balamb accent as kind of neutral, slightly Midlands (as that's where I come from) so definitely East Coast equivalent. Irvine has the accent from 'Five Hundred Miles' by the Proclaimers. Selphie's Cornish, where they all speak terribly fast.

Mana Angel; Wow. People have been WAITING. Or maybe you're all just being polite.

Melete: Thanks for reading.:P

Quistis88: Thought you _were_ posting? At least, I got an email. Now I just have to find time to R&R-apologies but if it's a choice between reading and writing, I tend to go for the writing. But I try.

Sabacat: I wouldn't say Seifer was feisty -always puts me in mind of small Japanese schoolgirls. Dunno why. It's just this thing.

Seatbelts; happy holidays to you too, you guys. Seifer's easy to write. He's kind of …….focused. If you can't argue with it, kill it. If you can't kill it, fight it anyway.

Seventhe: hiya to you. SDTC was all about getting Seifer to Garden so I could write everyone else. It just took a bit longer to get there, is all.

Sheep the adventurer; Ta. Glad to see it held your attention-bit long, but somehow twenty pages seem to be my default chapter length. Works for me.

Sickness In Salvation: RTS is definitely the last FF8 fic for me. My schedule gets fairly hectic next year as I have to be on call at nights -I don't think I'll be able to continue-and I'm not sure I'd really want to. Maybe I'll do a few single-chapter fics for some less popular fandoms or even original.

Slipper: Hey. I'm flattered.

Superviolist; It's a fanfiction about mercenaries. Conflict's a given, of one kind or another.

Virus: thankyou:D


	4. Chapter Three: What God Abandoned

Recovering The Satellites.

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.

Epitaph For An Army Of Mercenaries- AE Housman

Chapter Three: What God Abandoned.

"Get-….the hell….-off!" Seifer gasped. He twisted, trying to break free, but his assailant was just too big. Seifer was six foot two, but he only came up to the man's shoulder.

_Think it's fair to bet it's a man. A man, or some….ouch….Trabian female shotputter. Nobody normal's this damn tall._

A big guy, dark skinned, who wore some kind of long purple sleeveless vest and acted like someone who'd never been quite aware of his own strength….

_Remind you of anyone?_

Seifer stopped fighting.

"Hey! It's me, boss!"

The ex-knight smiled. "Raijin?"

There was a sudden pain in his shins, and a crisp, feminine voice. "SORRY. MISSED."

"Fuu? Get him to lemme go, will you?"

Nothing.

Seifer opened his mouth to shout another order, hoping he had enough oxygen left. The iron grip around his ribs loosened and then disappeared as Raijin released Seifer from his welcome-back hug. It was a greeting Seifer could cheerfully have done without.

_It's nice to feel wanted, but, shit, I think he broke my ribs._

Seifer staggered backwards without grace and tripped over his new SeeD manual, which had been kicked respectfully into the middle of the floor. He slammed one hand against the wall to stop himself from falling.

Fuujin smirked up at him. "RAIJIN, STUPID." She knitted her fingers together under her chin and looked Seifer up and down, a faint smile on her face. The sunlight glinted coldly from Fuujin's silver hair and diamond-tipped shuriken. She sat crosslegged on his bed, curled without apparent effort into a compact ball. Her bony knees and elbows stuck out at odd angles.

Raijin looked less comfortable in the tiny room. His cropped hair almost touched the ceiling. It was a good job he hadn't brought his fighting pole, because there was little enough free space as it was. Fuu had never taken up much room, but Raijin loomed even when he was trying not to.

Seifer steadied himself and looked at them both. Positioned next to each other, the pair looked mismatched at best. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth.

_Hyne, they're so different, but it works. Always has, I guess. It's been a while. _

Seifer would have expected the old posse to come and greet him as a matter of course, but that was before he'd dragged them into his battles. Before he'd come to them and said "_I need you to help me start a war."_

He'd never mentioned the sorceress back then, because he knew that they wouldn't follow anyone but him. Because he'd needed someone he could trust, someone who wasn't Galbadian. Who didn't think he was some fucked up kid too in love with the idea of being a hero to think about strategy and logistics, or anything else you needed to lead an army (or at least the kind of army that won). Someone who didn't care that he was only eighteen; and too much Ultimecia's to think about anything except her.

Now here he was and here they were and Raijin was smiling like it was all forgotten and they were seventeen again.

"Boss! It's good to have you back!"

Seifer leant against the wall, trying to pretend he didn't need to get his breath back. "Next time, try not to crush my ribs, okay? And….I'm not your boss."

Fuujin shook her head. "ALWAYS."

Raijin looked uncomfortable. "But, ya know, Garden."

"Yeah, I know."

"Leonhart, he took us in, after the wars. Me an' Fuu."

_Damn._

Squall's seemingly endless ability to forgive was pissing Seifer off. He'd hoped that the posse would still be his, and in a way he knew that they still were, but times had moved on. Things had changed.

He sighed. "Hyne, I'm sorry, Raijin." and looked at Fuujin, still seated statue-like on his unmade bed. "Fuu."

Raijin relaxed slightly. He crossed his arms over his broad chest "Ah, don't worry, boss. It worked out okay in the end, ya know."

Fuujin smiled. "ENDING WORLD, STUPID."

"Tell me about it." Seifer let go of the wall and sat down in the chair that went with his tiny desk. He picked a pen up and flipped it idly between his hands. His ribs ached.

"WHAT, NOW?"

"Dunno. Your guess is as good as mine."

Raijin gave a sigh and sat down on the bed next to Fuujin in a clamour of bedsprings. The mattress bowed in the centre under his weight, and Fuujin hitched herself slightly closer to the edge of the bed.

"NO PLAN?"

"Nope."

Fuujin looked thoughtful. "TOLD QUISTIS, THERE WAS…"

Seifer stopped rolling his pen along the tabletop. "What did you say to Quistis?"

He addressed the question to Fuujin, but Raijin answered. It was an odd habit the pair had. Sometimes Raijin would stop a conversation in midsentence and leave Fuujin to sum up his argument in a few barked words; sometimes the small woman would rely on Raijin to explain more complex matters. It was just how they worked.

"Told her you had a plan, was all. Guessed she thought you were going to die."

_Yeah? Well, her and me both. _

There was a sly sparkle in Fuujin's one remaining eye." NOT TRUE?"

"Hell, no."

"We knew you'd see it through." Raijin said, loyally.

_The scary thing_, Seifer thought, sourly, _is that he really means it. _

Fuujin perched on the bedframe like a sparrow, knees drawn up to her chest. Her fine hair drifted in the breeze from the open window. "SO, WHY BACK?"

The wind snatched at the remaining papers left on Seifer's desk, rolling his pen onto the floor. He crossed the room and slammed the window shut with a touch of irritation. His posse had a right to know, but hell, he was fed up with telling the same story to everyone he met.

"I'm fucked if I know. Lots of reasons. I guess I just got fed up of running. Maybe I missed you guys."

Raijin preened, but the charm was lost on Fuujin. "REAL REASON?"

"Seriously. I got tired. That's it."

"QUISTIS?"

"What about her?"

The pair exchanged a long look. Fuujin raised her eyebrows at her partner.

Raijin coughed apologetically. "Fuu guessed."

"LOVERS." Fuujin said bluntly.

Seifer wondered for one second about denying her claim and then reasoned that a/ he didn't want to and b/ he didn't have to.

"Yeah. Don't ask me how. It just happened. One thing and another. It works. Shouldn't, but it works."

"KNEW." Fuujin said smugly. She gestured at the laden table in front of him." SEIFER, WORK TO DO?"

"I guess. It can wait."

"WANT ANYTHING?"

Seifer replied "No." automatically and then remembered that he did want one thing very much. "Any chance you could get hold of some smokes for me? I'm grounded. Can't do jack without somebody breathing down my neck."

Fuujin leant across the bed and fondly smacked Raijin on the back of his head. "RAIJIN, GO. FETCH CIGARETTES."

Raijin slid one hand up the back of his neck. He looked mildly alarmed. "Fuu-"

"GO. NOW."

Her partner levered himself off the bed. The springs twanged gratefully back into place. Fuujin's head bobbed as the mattress creaked back to its original position, increasing her likeness to a small and ferocious bird. She smiled.

"Sure. Anything else?" Raijin said. He opened the door gently and wrapped his palm round the handle as if it might break.

"Nah. Fine, thanks -yeah, wait, a lighter if you can get one. Matches, if you can't."

"No problem, boss."

It occurred to Seifer that he should ask Raijin not to call him boss. He told himself that even if he did, Raijin probably wouldn't take any notice anyway.

Besides, he liked it.

Fuujin gave her partner a little wave. "BACK, SOON."

Raijin nodded glumly and left. The door closed behind him and Fuujin turned to Seifer. She pointed at the forms in front of him. "DO WORK. COME BACK TO GARDEN. GARDEN LOOKS AFTER US."

"Hell, I'm sure it does, Fuu."

"LEONHART, STILL PRICK. BUT FAIR."

The comment made Seifer laugh in surprise. "True." He turned back to his papers and ticked a few boxes at random.

Fuu walked over to the window and stared out at the blue sky, her face cupped in her palms while Seifer filled in a few more questions. Her next comment took him completely by surprise.

"GOOD FUCK, IS SHE?"

"Yeah. Ah, Fuu, you know I hate it when you do that. Now leavemealone. Got to finish this stupid form."

"LOVE HER?"

"Yeah…no..Maybe." He stabbed at a question with his biro, scribbled it out and scowled up at Fuujin. "Look, give it a rest. I don't ask you about Raijin."

"DIFFERENT." Fuujin said smugly.

"No it's not."

"IS."

"It damn well isn't."

"IS."

There was a loud bang that made them both turn around. The door bounced on its hinges as Raijin levered his way through it. In one large dark hand he held a packet of extremely crumpled cigarettes. "What is?"

Fuujin grinned slyly at Seifer. "NOTHING."

"Boss?"

Seifer shrugged and rose from the desk. "Nothing." He disabled the smoke alarm with the ease of long practice while Raijin shared the packet out, one for each of them. He gave the rest to Seifer, who slipped them in the pocket of his borrowed clothes, and shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, no lighters. Got some matches, though."

"Fine. Hand 'em over." Seifer said. He took the tiny box from Raijin, lit his cigarette and passed the matches to Fuu. He inhaled the first sweet mouthful of smoke into his lungs and held it until little black spots flashed in front of his eyes.

_Hyne. Nicotine. At last. _

Fuujin leant on the windowsill and smoked her cigarette like she had a grudge against it, her eyes narrowed fiercely. She'd opened the window again and a light breeze blew their smoke up to the ceiling, where it hung above the window frame in a ghostly pall.

Raijin took her place on the bed. He held his own cigarette between finger and thumb and smoked it in tiny, careful puffs, as if he was worried it would disappear if he inhaled too hard.

They sat and smoked for a while in silence as blue smoke slowly filled the room. Seifer balled up some of his fresh clothing into thick bundles and stuffed it in the cracks round the doorframe to prevent the smoke alarms in the corridor from going off. Both Raijin and Fuujin refused any more cigarettes after the first one, and he got the feeling they'd only accepted to humour him.

Fuujin finally moved away from the window and stretched. "SEIFER, GOT TO GO."

"Where?"

"ASSIGNMENT. CLASS."

Raijin looked proud. "Fuujin teaches. Tell him, Fuu."

"SHUT UP, ASSHOLE." Fuujin muttered, but a slight smile played round her lips.

"Congratulations" Seifer said awkwardly. It seemed like the right thing to say. Both Raijin and Fuujin had picked up one hell of a time for being different, back when they all were kids. He knew that it couldn't have been easy for them after the wars. It seemed rude, somehow, to fail to congratulate them for fitting in.

Still hurt, though.

Fuujin beamed, a real smile. "RAIJIN, TOO."

Raijin scuffed one foot against the floor. "Yeah, boss. I made SeeD, ya know. After you left."

Seifer shrugged. "Well done. How'd the test go?"

"Passed first time, boss."

"Hey, I'd expect nothing less, right? After all you did for me?"

"GLAD."

"Yeah. That's great, graduating and all." Seifer said. He sighed. All right for some. The way he was going, he'd be Garden's oldest student until the day he died.

Fuujin scowled. She pulled down the sash window, checked her watch and looked Seifer right in the eye. "NO. GLAD, YOU'RE PLEASED?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Seifer asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Well, ya know, all the things you used to say about the Garden, back when…." Raijin trailed off.

"BACK WHEN." Fuujin confirmed.

"Nah, really." He tried a smile. "That's great. You must have worked real hard."

"GARDEN, NOT TOO BAD. REALLY."

He sighed. "Nah."

Fuujin raised one eyebrow, the one above her eyepatch. "ANYWAY, CLASS."

"Enjoy yourself."

She shrugged. "STUDENTS, RETARDS."

Raijin looked up and said "She loves it really, ya know." He stubbed his half-smoked cigarette out on the bed frame and tossed it neatly into the litter bin. "And Leonhart, he even said that he might have some kind of promotion lined up, in the autumn term- "

Fuujin fixed him with a baleful grin. "RAIJIN, ASSHOLE. AND SQUALL. " She turned to Seifer, and her expression softened. "SEIFER, OKAY?"

The ex-knight looked from lighting his fifth cigarette of the morning. "Yeah. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? You go."

Fuujin looked ready to talk more, but time must have run out. She checked her watch and slipped out of the door like a shadow, leaving Raijin perched on the bed behind her.

They both listened to the sound of her footsteps trailing away down the hallway.

"Busy, boss?"

Seifer looked up. "Nah, you want to go, you go." He forced a smile. "It's not like I'm doing anything interesting."

"Sure?"

"Hell, yeah."

"It's just I've got classes.."

"Don't worry about it. Gotta finish these soon."

"Get you some more smokes, later." Raijin made a motion towards the door, and then turned back. "Look if you want me to stay…."

Seifer scribbled out another mistake and then slammed his pen down. "For fuck's sake. I can look after myself."

Raijin looked wounded.

Seifer stifled a groan. "Thanks for the cigs. I needed that. But if you've got a class to catch, you should go."

"Sure?"

"_Yes_."

"Okay, boss. Just thought you might like some company."

"Yeah, you know, later. Look, Xu'll have my head if I don't get this shit finished soon"

He picked up his pen and then bent over the desk. Raijin got the hint.

"See ya, then."

Seifer gave a half-hearted wave as Raijin left. He worked for about five minutes afterwards before he gave up and slumped down in his chair.

_Hyne. They're concerned._

He'd thought he'd recovered from the posse thing years ago. A childish phase, that's all, kiddy things. Children's games.

_Guess who grew up? _

_They're not mine any more. They're Garden's._

He told himself sternly not to be so self-pitying. Hyne, he sounded like a kid whining over the loss of a favourite toy. They hadn't ever been his, they'd been people and they'd done the right thing, the adult thing. They'd come back.

_It's broken. Nothing's ever going to be the same._

_Fix it._

_I can't. _

Seifer told himself firmly to shut up. It still felt like he'd been kicked in the head.

He'd thought he was good at leading. After all, it was easy to get loyalty –all you had to do was to divide the world into Them and Us, and fight anyone who refused to join your gang. He'd managed that part fine….

_Simple._

He looked down at the oceans of paperwork to complete, none of it simple at all, and suddenly knew that he had to get away. Fresh air. That was what he needed.

Actually, what he _really_ needed was a visit to the Training Centre. A couple of hours of monster fighting would get everything in black and white again, he was sure. It was difficult to worry about why you were here when you were up to your knees in other people's blood. You just hoped like hell you'd still be here in an hour's time.

_Damn work._

He got up from the table, kicked the chair underneath it and left the room without bothering to lock the door. Somebody would no doubt be assigned to search it, and that was a tedious enough job without any tricks.

After all, it wasn't as if he had anything left to hide.

He wrapped his bad mood around him like a favourite coat and slouched into the halls.

Like before, they were just as he'd remembered.

Home crap home.

The corridors were close and hot, almost claustrophobic, as if the sector's AC had packed up. Five minutes worth of aimless wandering made Seifer crave fresh air. There must be some way to get a breeze without going outside. Or throwing himself out of a window.

_But where?_

He reached the Quad a few minutes later, overheated, sweaty and fed up. His bad mood hadn't dissipated. In fact, he was coming to accept that he was fucking useless at relaxing. Even classes would be something to do.

_Hyne. I must be desperate._

However, since classes were in session, Seifer pretty much had the Quad to himself, and he was determined to make the most of it. He strolled down the steps and when nobody else turned up, sat down on a bench next to one of the flowerbeds.

The Quad looked just the same, too. It was very quiet, calm and peaceful. An insect buzzed lazily, right on the edge of hearing. Seifer slumped down in his seat until the back of his skull touched the top plank of the bench and looked up at the sky.

After about five seconds the cloudless blue expanse started to get boring.

_Dammit._

Rinoa could look at the sky and see something new in it every time. He'd asked her once what the hell she found so amazing about a bunch of clouds and stuff. She'd just smiled and said "I could gaze at the sky forever. It's always moving, never staying still."

Seifer couldn't remember what he'd replied. Whatever it was, it had probably been whatever he thought she wanted to hear.

He sighed, straightened up and fumbled in his pocket for the last of Raijin's cigarettes.

_It's not an addiction. Dammit. I could give up any time I wanted to._

He withdrew the packet and reverently extracted one of his last two smokes. The matchbox his posse had brought was battered, and mostly missing its ignition strip, but it was almost full. Seifer took out a crumpled match and held it up to the light, checking the tip critically to make sure that it was still in good working order.

_Well, it's a start. Just need to find something to strike it on._

He stared down at the bench he was sitting on. It was moulded out of a single piece of smooth, shining plastic. No luck there. He twisted round in his seat, looking for something rough that would strike a spark, and decided that a slab of granite three metres away looked like the best option. It was hard to miss, a rocky wedge in the centre of a mass of red blossoms.

Seifer knew what it was. Everybody in Garden knew what it was.

He walked over, struck a match on the monument and then paused with the flame half way to his cigarette. He held it until the fire burned down to his fingers and then dropped the match in the gutter as he read the memorial's script.

He could have recited the first inscription by heart.

_Balamb Garden War Memorial._

_These, in the day where heaven was falling,_

_The hour when earth's foundations fled,_

_Followed their mercenary calling_

_And took their wages and are dead._

_Their shoulders held the sky, suspended;_

_They stood, and earth's foundations stay;_

_What Hyne abandoned, these defended_

_And saved the sum of things for pay._

_A.H._

_This stone commemorates the memory of those who gave their lives in the service of this Garden._

There was a list of titles carved underneath the short inscription, and plenty of room for more names underneath. He'd seen it a hundred times before at the annual Remembrance Day services, but the verse underneath was new.

_Also dedicated to the memory of all those who gave their lives in the Sorceresses War._

_Resquiescat In Pace._

A longer list followed. Seifer dragged his gaze down the names. Thankfully, he didn't recognise many of them. There were only a couple of familiar entries on the list, and even then he told himself that maybe he'd got the names wrong. A pair of girls, two coolly courteous cadets who he thought he remembered smiling at in the corridor a few times.

_Can't be the same people. Didn't they graduate in the year below or something?_

It wasn't a long list.

_Well, at least that's one thing to be thankful for._

Seifer shivered, once, and stowed his unlit cigarette away in his pocket. Wasn't like the guys commemorated were around to mind, or anything, but it felt vaguely disrespectful.

The list continued up through Black, T and Astor, N….Almasy, S…

_Well, whaddaya know. They put me on._

There was one other name above his, and much as Seifer would have loved it to be Squall's, it wasn't. That wouldn't have been alphabetical. This was a military academy, and everything had to be orderly, after all. Even the dead. And sadly, Squall wasn't yet deceased.

Seifer scowled. It was weird to know that he finally could dance on his grave. Maybe if he got drunk enough in the next ten or so years he'd come here and try it sometime.

Maybe he'd come back with a chisel.

He stared down at his own name.

_Think of it as an investment. In a few years they won't have to pay to have me added..._

_Might be a bit late for the Sorceress though. Maybe they could add a footnote or something._

He scanned up and reread the epitaph. The ancient inscription engraved at the base of the memorial translated itself automatically in his mind. _Resquiescat In Pace_.

Rest In Peace.

There was something familiar about the phrasing the carver had used. Seifer didn't know why. That tongue hadn't been spoken in thousands of years. He was sure he could remember something about it being the language back when Centra had been inhabited.

In the modern world, it was only used on tombstones.

Seifer scowled at the memorial, set in its ring of red flowers, and noticed something strange at the base of the stone.

_More flowers?_

He moved closer, stepped up onto the low stone wall that separated the monument from the Quad and sat down on top of it, boots ankle-deep in mulch and compost as he tried to work out exactly what had caught his attention.

There seemed to be a second arrangement of tiny cutout flowers ranked at the base of the stone, just within arm's reach. They were exactly the same colour of the bedding plants, although their shape resembled no living flower Seifer had ever seen.

_So-not daisies then. Or roses. I'm pretty sure I'd recognise roses. _

Whatever they were, they looked as if they'd been there for a while. The colour had started to leach out from the cheap cardboard and the edges looked chewed.

He picked one up and turned it over. The crude paper flower was pinned to a tiny bamboo cross to hold it into the soil. Inked on the back, faded and water-damaged, was a single name. It wasn't one he recognised.

Seifer shrugged and replanted the flower, surreptitiously checking the memorial as he did so to make sure whoever-it-was hadn't died in what he was beginning to think of as his battle. They hadn't, but it didn't make him feel much better.

_Yeah, great. This really cheered me up. _

The Quad was still empty. Seifer guessed that he had maybe five minutes until change-of-lesson time. He ran a grubby hand through his hair and suddenly realised just what he must look like, crouched in a flowerbed staring at a slab of rock like a lunatic.

_Well, shit._

Seifer climbed out of the flowerbed and smoked his second–to-last cigarette under one of the Quad's many trees. The smoke curled up between the branches to the blue, blue sky above the dome. Seifer followed it with his eyes, his mind filled with funeral pyres. So far, his little exploration had done absolutely nothing to cure his black mood. He cast around for possible options.

_Well there's the canteen. I can't remember the last time I ate something with legs. _

He exhaled and sighed. The number of cigarettes he'd smoked in the last hour made it extremely unlikely that he'd actually be able to taste anything. So no point eating, then.

_Oh, fuck it._

He leant back against the tree.

_I have to go see Quistis. Hell, I should have kissed her. Then everyone'd know, and they wouldn't think I've got a vendetta against her... _

The Galbadian had mentioned some kind of office. Xu's forms had forced Seifer to visit almost every work area in Garden. He was sure he could work out the location of Quistis's desk.

Seifer's hand moved towards his pocket once more, automatically. There was nobody else around, and he was pretty sheltered under the spreading branches.

_Just one more cigarette. It might take a while._

Trust Garden to make smoking some kind of crime. It wasn't much of a problem from Seifer, who always interpreted orders as suggestions, but it was beginning to dawn on him that he was damn lucky not to have tripped an alarm.

_Hell, I'm doing them a favour. The smoke detectors must be fucked._

His searching hands found the last Lucky Strike. Seifer took this happy coincidence as a sign from Hyne that he was destined to enjoy another cigarette. He tucked the smoke in the corner of his mouth and struck a match on the tree bark, cupping his hands to protect the tiny flame. It flickered in a light breeze, and then froze.

Seifer lowered his head slightly and touched the end of the cigarette to the hottest part of the flame.

It didn't light.

He tried again.

This time, instead of igniting, the cigarette bounced off the flame with a tiny _bink_. A few flakes of what looked like snow, or maybe ash, floated to the ground.

The flame glowed faintly. It was motionless.

It looked frozen.

Seifer tapped it a few times with a stained fingernail

_Cold._

_Solid._

_Ice._

It was at that point he realised that the flame really had frozen.

_…..what the fuck…_

He held the match up to the light between finger and thumb and scowled at it for a second. The wooden part looked fine. In fact, it looked better than it should have. It didn't take much time for a match to burn down, but the flame wasn't burning. It was motionless.

_The flame…it's frozen…._

Seifer finally reasoned that all this thinking wasn't getting his smoke any more lit and flicked the tiny icicle with his thumbnail. It shattered into icy fragments all over his coat sleeve and he leant back to shield his precious last cigarette from the onslaught. It was at this moment that the penny, long suspended, finally dropped.

_Fuck. Someone's being clever. And for a change, it's not me._

Eyes narrowed, he looked around for the culprit and finally found her. He'd thought the Quad empty, except for him. He'd been wrong.

_How'd I miss that one?_

A female SeeD rested demurely on one of the benches. She wore the strange enveloping uniform that meant she was a faculty member. And she was watching him.

Seifer could guess exactly what she was going to say. He was right.

"This is a no-smoking zone… sir."

Each word was clearly enunciated with a crisp accent that reminded Seifer of Quistis. There was a long pause between the _zone _and the _sir _which told him she wasn't quite sure of his rank.

Seifer shrugged.

There was a long silence.

Seifer held the matchbox in one hand, weighing up his chances. The SeeD sat leaning forwards with her arms folded. Her body language looked pissed.

He raised his eyebrows, struck another match and touched the flame back to his cigarette.

_"Blizzara"_

The flame flickered, and turned back into ice. Seifer, despite himself, was impressed. Quistis had demonstrated the new kind of magical channelling to him back in Trabia. The technique had its advantages, and certainly allowed you to focus the spell on a tiny area with surgical precision, but the skill required seemed phenomenal. It was something Seifer knew he'd be terrible at.

"Excuse me, this is a no-smoking zone and if you don't put your cigarettes away then….."

Seifer tuned the SeeD out. He broke the frozen match into two pieces, dropped them onto the floor and struck another match. The sulphur-coated head caught and ignited with a _whmph_.

"_Blizzara"_

_Flick. Whmph._

_"Blizzara"_

_Flick. Whmph._

_"Blizzara"_

Seifer tucked his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and banged the matchbox against a tree. A thin film of ice cracked away from the cheap cardboard carton and fell to the soil below.

Defying authority was all very well, but this was starting to annoy him.

"I hate to tell you this-" he said, in a tone of voice that meant he wasn't at all- "but you're going to run out of magic before I run out of matches."

The classman might have smiled, behind her enveloping hat. "Is that what you think?"

Seifer frowned at her and nodded, giving the packet a tiny shake to make sure. It rattled encouragingly, still mostly full. He gave the SeeD a challenging grin. "Want to bet?"

You weren't really meant to junction magic inside the halls, but most people kept a few spells. Seifer doubted that the SeeD had equipped more than half a dozen Ice variants and he could stand here all day setting things on fire before he used up all his matches. Still, she was looking a bit too confident for him to be completely sure of himself.

He selected another match without looking as he watched the SeeD. She just sat there. She certainly didn't look as if she was planning anything.

_Fine. I'll wait until she casts and then duck out of the way. Wait 'til Squall hears that one of his trees's been accidentally frozen to death._

_Mostly accidentally, anyway._

Seifer struck the match and touched it to the end of his cigarette.

The cadet cast with a few whispered words. It wasn't the spell Seifer had expected.

_"Fira."_

_Shit._

Seifer looked automatically down at the flame. It was fortunate that he was already in the process of carrying out his planned duck-and-dodge manoeuvre because his cigarette ignited just as the Fira hit it.

WHMPH.

The gentle glow of burning tobacco vanished as the flame grew by three feet, burning with a blue tinge. Seifer instantly dropped both matchbox and cigarette, shaking his burned fingers. Just at that point his brain caught up with his muscles and so he was already halfway behind the tree when the flame imploded with a soft pop.

He stepped out from behind the tree a few seconds later, only lightly singed, and looked regretfully at the small bonfire blazing on the Quad's tiles. Both matchbox and cigarette had instantly vaporised, and so there shouldn't have been anything left to burn. Maybe it was using the tile glaze as fuel.

_Hyne. My last smoke. My last motherfucking cigarette. _

The SeeD stood up and moved closer. There was a single stripe on her uniform. Seifer compared this to his mental catalogue of SeeD insignia and realised that she probably did outrank him. Hell, the guys who cleaned out the chicken soup machines probably outranked him, never mind SeeDs. Her name tag read 'Deft.' She looked about thirty, and extremely unimpressed.

Seifer gave her a couple of points for either bravery or stupidity. There had been times in his life when he would cheerfully have cut somebody's throat for wasting his last cigarette. Sadly, now was not one of those times.

_Nothing sharp within reach. Pity._

He looked up and said "Thanks a lot." in a tone of withering sarcasm.

"Rules are rules."

"Bullshit. Rules are there to be broken."

"SeeD regulation 2901, paragraph three._ 'Cadets are not permitted to smoke inside the Garden._'"

"Fuck off."

"SeeD regulation 132, subclause eight. '_Cadets should refrain from using obscene language. As representatives of the Garden, they should endeavour at all times to present a polite and professional image._'"

Seifer snarled "I'm going." He turned away, trying to think of the fastest way to the SeeD offices.

There was a loud and pointed cough from behind him.

"Now what?" Seifer snapped. He turned around and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

The SeeD tapped her foot on the tiles. "I'm waiting."

"For what?"

"For an apology, of course."

Seifer opened his mouth to say _fuck you_ and instead thought; _what's the point?_ What could they actually do to him, after all? Demote him a rank? Put a black mark on his report card? At the end of the day, getting into another pointless argument or fight would just slow him down. Or maybe ensure that he wouldn't be allowed anywhere near Quistis until they were both too wrinkly to do anything interesting. Or maybe, just maybe, it would get him executed.

_Oh, what the hell. Nobody said it had to be sincere. _

"Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. I understand the error of my ways and will never touch another cigarette."

Deft scowled. She glanced down at the charcoaled stain on the tiles of the Quad.

"It's an apology." Seifer pointed out.

"It'll do."

She turned around and stalked off.

_Huh, looks like I just made another enemy. Join the fucking queue._

Seifer shrugged and continued on his way. It wasn't far to the SeeD offices. He'd just have to hope Quistis was there. And if not, he'd just wait until she was.

Part of him despised himself for having to depend on anybody, even a lover. He'd always been able to sort out his problems by himself, usually with the nearest sharp object to hand.

_Yeah. I made such a good job of it, too. That's why I'm here. _

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and stalked along the passages to the administrative level. Nobody asked him where he was going, though presumably somebody, somewhere, made a note of it.

Seifer had expected that finding Quistis's office would be difficult, but in fact it wasn't at all. He just snagged a sheet of typed paper from the first in-tray he found and walked as if he knew where he was going. He found Quistis's name engraved between two others on a metal nameplate, glanced around and opened the door.

The first thing he noticed about the office was that it was empty.

The _second_ thing was that the room was surprisingly pleasant. Two large windows looked out over the Balamb mountains. There was a coffee machine, a proper carpet and three large desks. Two of the desks were extremely messy. One was extremely clean and Seifer decided that it must be Quistis's. It was empty except for a computer, an in-tray, an out-tray (both empty) a plain white envelope with Quistis's name typed on it and several strange little toys. Seifer walked over for a closer look.

_Huh. Weird. What's she doing with desk ornaments? Really _ugly_ desk ornaments._

He lifted one and watched in fascination for about three seconds as a succession of pink globes travelled down a series of intricate ramps. All the other ornaments were the same, varying only in colour, shape, or design and number of ramps. To Seifer's mind, they were obviously all torture chambers for small plastic balls.

All except one.

The exception was unusual. It didn't look like a stress toy at all. There was a thick metal plate screwed to one end of the desk with a cord attached to it. The cord terminated in a metal ball about the size of a ball-bearing.

_Weird. _

Seifer lifted the ball and dropped it again. It fell vertically in an arc and thudded into the plate with a soft dull noise that sounded exactly like somebody's head hitting a desk. It looked like some kind of weapon.

_Now this one, I like._

He played with the device for a couple of minutes until boredom set in and he turned to the coffee machine for amusement.

_Coffee. Just what I need to make me jittery and paranoid_

It was surprisingly good, thick, black and strong. Seifer added three sugars from a basket full of paper packets and examined the other desks.

The first was a wreck. Its surface was completely invisible under piles of paper, topped off with a thick layer of dust. Pens stuck out from the stacks at odd angles. Edges of plates protruded from underneath stray pieces of paper. Seifer wouldn't have been surprised to see a hand or foot reaching out from the heaps. He ignored it. He'd had enough of stacks of paper.

The second desk obviously belonged to Selphie. There were pictures of the small SeeD and that stupid Galbadian boyfriend of hers tacked all over the wall. Among them hung snapshots of Quistis looking embarrassed, Zell looking stupid, and all of Squall's friends gurning ferociously.

Seifer picked up a marker and spent five minutes adding moustaches, spectacles and incredibly unrealistic cleavage to all the faces who weren't Quistis. When he'd run out of photos to annotate he turned his attention to the desk itself.

Selphie's piles of paperwork had been colonised by invading armies of small plastic trolls with spiky hairstyles. There were large trolls and small trolls, trolls in nurses' outfits and suspenders and swimming costumes. There was even one brown-haired troll in a miniature SeeD uniform, complete with tiny boots. Somebody had inked a diagonal scar across its face and a speech bubble reading 'whatever' on one cheek.

Seifer smiled.

He spent the next ten minutes posing the Squall-troll in compromising positions with a pair dressed as Dollet maids. When even that entertainment palled, he made himself more coffee and stared out of the window, waiting for Quistis as his bad mood crept slowly back.

Surely she had to return some time?

_Where the hell is he?_

Quistis prowled along Garden's corridors like a Torama with an attitude problem. Her hands clenched into fists as she tried to keep calm; an effort which increased with each passing minute.

It had been a long morning. Hyne, it had been a long day.

She'd been woken early by a messenger from Doctor Kadowaki. The medic had assigned her a full health-check and the examination had devoured most of Quistis's free time. She'd donated samples of every bodily fluid she could produce and had so many needles stabbed into her flesh that she felt like a pincushion. Her arms ached from the blood pressure cuff and her head hurt from reading eye test charts.

The high point of her day had been the doctor declaring her fit for duty. The low point had been Xu storming in while Quistis was hooked up to an ECG, complaining about Seifer. Quistis had listened with as neutral an expression as she could manage. The remaining tests had given her plenty of time to think.

The sun was low in the sky by the time she finally escaped, with two items on her itinerary. The first was locating Seifer to work out exactly what he had been doing. _Shouldn't be that hard. _

The second was catching up on some of her paperwork. It was surprising how much admin killing monsters and the occasional mission generated. Expenses vouchers, stores requisitions, incident reports, notifications of intent to use restricted magic in built-up areas, mileage allowance chits (SeeDs on missions were allowed five Gil per mile for use of rented vehicles, anyone piloting the Raganarok got three hundred Gil per tank of rocket fuel), time sheets and magic junctioning slips and health and safety forms for the GFs and a whole pile of other stuff you never had to worry about in the field.

The very thought depressed Quistis. She considered filing another request form to be upgraded to Instructor but decided against it. She had enough problems without being rejected another time.

Anyway. Seifer.

Since leaving the infirmary she'd visited his rooms three times. Each time they'd been empty, but unmistakably Seifer's. Nobody else she knew crumpled all their clothes in heaps on the floor as a matter of course. Nobody else was that stupid.

She'd read that most people liked the idea of a relationship much more than they liked the harsh reality of cohabiting. With Quistis and Seifer, it was the other way around. When they were apart, Quistis always found it worryingly easy to compile mental lists of reasons why they had no business being together. Some of them were alphabetical and none had ever been shorter than twenty-three items.

Yet, whenever they were together, it seemed to work.

And now, for some unforeseeable reason, she'd ended up worrying about him. Or at least searching for him, which was the same kind of thing. Seifer wasn't the kind of person who needed looking after. He worried other people, and many semi-sentient beings. They didn't worry him. Even the ones which should worry him considerably didn't at all. Such as the ones with three metre long fangs or the ones which were twelve feet tall or heavily armed.

Quistis frowned. There was still no sign of Seifer, and that meant she had absolutely no excuse not to do some work. She'd checked the dorms, the dining hall, the garage, the entrance gates and the student classrooms. She'd even found an excuse to visit Xu and hover round Squall's office.

_Why do I bother? No, really, why?_

She sighed, consciously abandoned her search and hastened towards her office, feeling not at all enthusiastic. Whatever Seifer had been doing, it would just have to wait until tomorrow. It was nearly seven o'clock and she'd been away for just over two weeks. She'd lucky if she could even get into the room.

Damn Seifer. _He must have some redeeming qualities_, she thought_. Otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't be looking forwards to seeing him. It's just coincidence that I can't quite remember any at the moment. _

Quistis was a creature of routine. Habits were hard to break. And Seifer seemed to have become a habit.

A bad one.

Quistis sighed and opened her office door.

As she pushed the door open she noticed two things. One, that her desk was surprisingly free of paperwork.

The second thing was Seifer. He glanced up from behind her desk, a mug of coffee halfway to his mouth. He held the blade of a pair of scissors in his free hand. They had obviously been used to enthusiastically disembowel one of Quistis's desk ornaments, because the desk surface was covered with puddles of coloured dye and crushed plastic balls. There were fresh nicotine stains on his hands, so he'd obviously found cigarettes somewhere. Quistis was glad. She didn't really want to deal with a nicotine-deprived Seifer at the moment. One thing at a time.

_Even if it is occasionally like kissing an ashtray. _

She sighed, raised her eyes to heaven and asked him "What in Hyne's name are you _doing_?"

She hadn't meant to start their conversation on such an aggressive note, but Seifer was a confrontational person. In fact he was such a confrontational person that he somehow turned almost everyone he met into confrontational people, too.

Seifer raised one eyebrow. "Waiting for you." He looked down at his hands as if he'd suddenly realised what he'd been doing and casually pushed the heaps of tiny spheres and most of the water off the desk.

Quistis winced. "With my stress toys? What are you doing with my stress toys?" Who would have thought so much plastic could fit into such a tiny space?

Seifer grinned. "No idea, but they can't be working."

"What have you been doing?"

"What've _you_ been doing? You look like hell."

Quistis sighed and rolled up her left sleeve to show him the blood pressure cuff bruises. "I spent the morning with Doctor Kadowaki."

"Did she say you were okay?" His tone of voice was very slightly sympathetic.

She tugged down her sleeve in a business-like manner and said crisply "I'm fine. And I heard you saw Squall. How did it go?"

Seifer shrugged with one shoulder, noncommittally. "Okay."

"Okay?" Quistis pressed.

"Okay."

"I swear, sometimes I don't know who's less talkative at times, you, or him."

She knew that Seifer was used to comparisons with Squall. They usually began with the words 'Why aren't you more like-' and carried on from there.

He grinned. "Him. Always. It's not hard."

Quistis smiled. "But Squall readmitted you? I thought he would."

Seifer avoided her eyes. He suddenly found the ceiling very interesting. His smile faded.

Quistis tapped the toe of one impeccably polished boot on the floor. "I'm waiting."

"Hell, I'm still here. What did you expect?"

"I don't know." Quistis said quietly. She frowned. "He really did let you stay?"

"He did. The thing I don't get is _why_." He fiddled with his coffee cup, ran a finger round the rim and then drank the contents with a grimace.

The movement sparked caffeine-deprived neurones in Quistis's brain. She turned to the coffee machine, placed a polystyrene cup under the percolator and pressed a button. She spoke over her shoulder to Seifer as the machine roared into life. "You must have some idea."

"Why?" He paused, a scowl on his face. "Maybe he really does need all the fighters he can get. Is he that desperate?"

"Probably not."

"Then that's no good."

"Some people," Quistis said carefully, "would find it hard to kill someone who they'd known since they were five." She withdrew a surprisingly small cup from the bowels of the coffee dispenser and sat down, facing Seifer.

He looked surprised. "Would they? Doubt it."

"I think, "Quistis said carefully, between gulps of coffee "that it might be more of a statement."

Seifer looked puzzled. He didn't understand diplomacy, Quistis knew. It wasn't that he was stupid, he just didn't think along those lines. "You mean, like he's all grown up? Independent?"

"Exactly. Balamb can deal with stuff alone. Without help from any countries or other Gardens. Even stuff like you."

"But what use am I if I can't fight? He's not gonna make me a SeeD."

"Squall said that?" Quistis said, and frowned. "Strange."

"Yeah. See what I mean? He's got to have some secret devious fuckin' reason for keeping me on. I just have to find out what it is."

"So you can go along with it?" Quistis raised one eyebrow elegantly over her spectacles. "Or just so you can't?"

Seifer grinned. "Depends what it is." He picked up a white envelope from the desk and shoved it at her.

Quistis took it, reflexively. "This is?"

"Hyne knows. It's addressed to you."

Quistis raised her eyebrows and slit the envelope in a businesslike manner with one fingernail. She extracted the contents, read the first page and then sat with her mouth unattractively open for a few seconds before leafing through the rest. "They made me an instructor."

Seifer looked less than impressed. "You're already an instructor."

"No. I got demoted." Quistis said. She automatically folded the papers and placed them neatly back into the envelope. "Just first-years, but it's a start."

Seifer looked faintly guilty for a second and then brushed it off. "Hey, congratulations. We should celebrate."

"How?" Quistis said, blankly. She still held the envelope in both hands, plans running through her head. If she had been in her right mind she would have cursed herself for giving Seifer such an obvious opening, but she still felt vaguely shellshocked.

Seifer grinned, got up from his chair and sat on the corner of Quistis's desk. He rested both his hands on the back of her chair, leant forwards and angled his head sideways to kiss her neck, gently. "Could think of a few things."

Quistis got a very clear mental picture of exactly what he meant, and blushed. She leant backwards in her chair, giving him better access, and pretended not to notice as his hands crept forwards from the chair onto her body.

There was a slight noise from outside, in the corridor. Quistis reached backwards to rest one hand on Seifer's knee and told herself that the admin floor was usually busy.

Seifer took his mouth away from her neck long enough to say "You want- " and then broke off abruptly as the door slammed open. Selphie walked in. She held a stack of paperwork in her arms and was thankfully paying no attention at all to the office. Her head was tilted over one shoulder as she laughed at somebody behind her. This presented Quistis with a decent view of the back of her upswept hair.

"Selphie?" she gasped, and levitated out of her chair, ending up on the opposite side of the room to Seifer. She dared not meet his eyes, wrestling with a complex mixture of fear, guilt and sexual frustration.

The Trabian SeeD's head whipped round. She deposited the papers unceremoniously onto her desk, dislodging a few trolls as she did so, and pointed towards the door. "Me an' Irvy." she said, and pushed the door open wider.

Her comment was punctuated with a soft thud as cascading trolls bounced off the carpet.

The sniper leant casually against the door, each elbow propped onto a different side of the doorframe. Selphie frowned, and retrieved trolls absently. She made a tiny gesture with one hand, jabbing her fingers at first Quistis, then Seifer.

Quistis interpreted the movement as '_are you all right?_' She put her coffee down on the desk so hard that it spilled over onto the table top and nodded, first imperceptibly, and then, as Selphie opened her mouth to speak, more emphatically. She meant the gesture to imply polite assent, yes, I am fine, now go.

Selphie just looked puzzled. "Quistis? You all right?

Irvine said nothing. The sniper was good at waiting.

Quistis answered "Fine." in the tone of voice that meant _please leave_. She scrubbed one hand across her cheek in an attempt to erase the blush from her face and thought of several swearwords.

_Fuck_, Seifer thought. It was the kind of situation that could only be conveyed using four-letter words.

He'd spent the best part of their conversation trying to convince his body that lethally strong caffeine was an acceptable substitute for nicotine and keeping his line of sight away from Quistis's legs. He didn't think she'd noticed. Somewhere along the way, he might have made a few more or less intelligent comments, but he was fucked if he could remember where.

He'd been on the point of suggesting that they forget about why he was here and start doing something more interesting somewhere more comfortable when the office door opened.

Seifer didn't believe in gods, except in the general please-get-me-out-of-this way that most soldiers developed, but right now he was prepared to believe that Hyne hated him. It felt like the gods had nailed him to a door with a huge packet of cigarettes just out if his reach and left him to be disembowelled by angry fire ants or Tonberries or something.

Bad enough that his meeting with Fuujin and Raijin hadn't exactly gone well. Bad enough that Quistis's friends seemed to have (as usual) jumped to the wrong conclusion completely and assumed that he had some kind of vendetta against her. But the way she'd leapt away from him just as soon as Selphie walked through the door really annoyed him.

He scowled.

Selphie leant against the wall and smiled at him. "Well, it's nice to see that you guys are getting on okay."

Her comment irritated Seifer, mainly because it was nothing to how well they would have been getting on in twenty minutes if his plans had worked. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Selphie looked at him as if he'd gone mental. "It means-what it means."

Seifer's patience snapped. Hell, if Quistis wanted to talk to her friends more than she wanted to make out with him, then that was fine. And he knew of one way to make it even easier for her. Leaving.

"Hyne, you fuckers never have a damn straight answer. If you don't want me to speak to her just say so. I'm tired of this shit."

He got up from the table, noticed that Quistis was staring at him like he was mad as well, glared at her and almost fell over as the soles of his boots slipped on a myriad of small plastic balls.

This pissed him off even more.

It felt good just to be angry at somebody. Anger was, in many ways, Seifer's default mode. Anger directed at the Garden, the comments, Quistis and Selphie and Irvine and the small spheres of plastic which had appeared as if from nowhere and which made the smooth floor of the office treacherously slick.

What he really wanted was to take his frustration out on the nearest person, place or object. According to the terms of Squall's parole this was not really an option.

_Shit. _

He shouldered Irvine out of the way and slammed the door back against the wall so hard that it left a permanent imprint of the handle embossed against the opposite wall.

Quistis stared after him.

Selphie looked puzzled. "What's the matter with him?"

"Hyne knows." Quistis snapped. She knew very well what the matter was and it made her feel awful. Awful, and extremely guilty. This was a new emotion for Quistis, who prided herself on never doing anything to generate guilt,

She got up from her chair, leaving the letter behind with her half-finished coffee.

"Quistis?"

Irvine unpeeled himself from the doorframe long enough to ask, laconically, "Need help?"

"No." Quistis said succinctly over her shoulder as she exited.

"What's the matter with her?" Selphie asked plaintively, just as she shut the door behind her.

_Do they know? Because if they do, I've just cut off my nose to spite my face. Figuratively speaking, that is._

Quistis knew, with bone-deep certainty, that she'd just been a bitch.

_Oh….-bother._

She caught up with Seifer at the lift terminal. He didn't look at her. His jaw was set, and there was an expression on his face that Quistis, fairly practised at interpreting Seifer's moods, couldn't fathom.

She slowed her approach, considering her tactics. She settled for direct, a viewpoint which Seifer usually appreciated, and said "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

His uncharacteristic response made Quistis feel even worse. "Don't pretend."

He did turn and glare at her then, eyes narrowed. "Yeah? Why don't you start acting like it does?"

"It does. I just think-" she searched for a phrase that wouldn't make her feel lame. "-we should let people get used to it -to us- gradually." _Hyne she thought_. _It sounds like I'm dumping him._ She tried desperately to think of something to get him to see things from her point of view, and failed miserably."Look. I love my job and I love Garden even more."

"So?" Seifer stabbed a few more buttons. He didn't seem impressed, or even bothered.

Quistis had to admit that her conversational skills weren't exactly up to her usual standards. "Seifer, you have to understand that Garden is the most important thing to me. If I can't work here, I have no life. I just want to take it slowly. This isn't Trabia. It's Garden, and what I do now affects a whole lot of things." She paused for breath and made an effort to control her voice as few cadets visiting one or another of the offices looked round at them. Seifer's glare made them find something every interesting a short distance down the corridor.

"Why does everything have to be fucking complicated?" Seifer said.

They both realised that the lift wasn't coming simultaneously. Quistis glanced down the shaft quizzically while Seifer snarled and punched the glass door with his fist. Luckily, Garden glass was mostly bulletproof for security reasons. "Shit. I forgot I broke it."

"When? When did you find time to break the lift?" Quistis asked while she thought _now this is what I have a problem_ with. "The emergency stairs are just over there." Her casual comment marked a kind of multilateral disarmament. She could feel the antagonism in the air fading slightly as they both changed mental gears

As they left she pointed out, casually. "We need to talk."

"Where?" Seifer said sardonically. He looked to be on the verge of leaving, and if there was one thing Quistis was certain of, it was that she wasn't going to let Seifer escape from another discussion.

She glanced around, considering, and her gaze lit on something shiny a few metres away. A door handle.

She walked over, fumbled for the knob and jerked it down. It gave, swinging towards her with a creak. A gust of warm air blew out, and Quistis cursed the Garden's erratic air-conditioning. In winter Balamb was always snug and warm, but the Garden's generators threw off a lot of heat which made ventilation a must in the summer months. She pulled the key out of the lock and stuck her head inside.

The small room was dark and dusty, obviously seldom visited. A tiny skylight let in beams of hazy velvet light, illuminating a stack of old tables somebody had stored and then forgotten, piles of blue exercise books and forests of stacked pens.

Perfect.

She turned to Seifer and said "Here." before she grabbed him by his T-shirt shoulder and dragged him into the room. Seifer went, reluctantly, but Quistis knew that if he hadn't been at least partly willing, she'd never have moved him.

He glanced around with a calculating expression, his hair shining dully in the dust-spattered light like an errant halo.

Quistis reached for the key and locked the door, just in case everyone decided to suddenly develop a pathological need for out-of-date stationery products. "You were saying?"

"Back there, that really fucking pissed me off. But it isn't just that. You explained some of that back in Trabia. It's this whole place. Everybody's on my back. Like I'm going to explode or something."

Quistis rolled her eyes and pushed her glasses up her nose. The cracked lens fractured half her vision into diamond points, and she made a mental note to go to the commissary right after they left and see if the new ones she'd ordered had come in yet. She mustered her best schoolteacher voice. "Did you give anybody a chance to be pleasant?"

"Damn, Quis. Did I give them a chance? Of course I didn't give them a chance. You can't afford to give people chances. Means you're weak."

She sighed. _Well, that means 'no' then_. "Seifer, it means you're _normal_. You glare at everyone like you're challenging them to a fight."

"Do I?" Seifer said. He appeared vaguely flattered. Quistis didn't know why. She'd always held that an attitude got you into as many fights as it got you out of.

"Yes."

His sullen expression lifted, just a touch. "Is this the bit where I say 'I can change?'"

"It would be, if I thought you could. Anyway, Hyne, Seifer. Can't you just accept that Squall let you back in and he wouldn't have done that if he thought you were to blame for the wars. What's the matter?"

"Nothing." Seifer snapped. His hand reached for the doorhandle but Quistis beat him to it. She yanked the handle down without a word, illustrating that the door was locked.

Seifer swore and she pretended not to hear. "You locked us in?"

"I know that. That means 'yes, there is, but I'm not telling.' What _happened_ this morning?"

"You better have the key, Quis."

"First tell me what happened this morning." she said firmly. "Apart from the study thing, which I'm prepared to admit was a mistake."

Seifer looked slightly mollified at her admission of guilt. He'd be ecstatic, Quistis thought, if he only knew just how bad she felt about the whole situation.

"Nothing. I told you. Went to see Kadowaki-"

"Then that makes two of us. Did she clear you, too?"

"Yeah. Clean bill of health. Nothing catching, either. Thought you'd be pleased."

Quistis ignored him. "Then what?

"Went up to see Squall. No, wait, Zell took me. He was acting like a tit. Still can't believe they promoted him. The fuckwit."

"So, you had an argument with Zell."

"Kind of. Then Xu."

Quistis tapped the fingernails of one hand on the leg of a discarded table. "You had an argument with Xu. That explains a bit."

"Yeah. So then she gave me all this shit to fill in. I saw the posse, then came up here."

She smiled. "I thought having fights put you in a good mood."

"Sort of. Did you know I was officially dead?"

His question caught Quistis a little off-balance. "You already knew. You told me that was the only reason why nobody came after you, back in Trabia."

"I know. It's weird, though. Didn't know they put up a gravestone." He slouched back against a table and avoided her eyes again. "Did you?"

"It's more of a war memorial."

"Well, whatever. That and Squall's damn stupid conditions."

"What conditions?"

"I didn't tell you about them? I can't leave the Garden, carry a weapon, or talk to kids without a SeeD's permission. Or Rinoa. And Squall's got my fucking gunblade stuffed in his office somewhere. I don't like being unarmed and I don't like that asshole telling me what to do."

Quistis tried to imagine how she'd feel without Save The Queen tied at her belt. It was nearly impossible. She'd acquired the whip at ten and had spent hours experimenting, braiding dried tentacles and steel wire together to give it strength and flexibility. It wasn't the first thing she put on in the morning (that would be foolish) but it was close.

Seifer must have seen understanding dawn slowly in her eyes because he said "I hate being unarmed. A threat's only a threat if you're prepared to follow it through afterwards."

"You're not supposed to be threatening anyone. There are other ways to communicate with people than at the point of a sword, you know"

"I know. It just makes me feel better."

"You should get used to it."

Seifer shrugged and looked round at their dusty surroundings as if for the first time. "Why'd you want to go in here for?"

"So we didn't attract attention."

"This is one hell of a big closet. I'm surprised Squall isn't in here too. Don't think he's worked up the courage to come out yet."

Quistis moved closer and dug him in the ribs. " He's not gay, and you know it."

"Could be denial."

"It's not. Believe me." Quistis said. She shifted her position, trying to find a comfortable seat. If the first phase of their conversation had ended with the conciliation of multilateral disarmament, then this relatively normal discussion was a white flag.

Or maybe a green one, she thought as her brain added 'a large space with no windows' with 'no spectators' and came up with an answer she liked.

She reminded herself sternly that she shouldn't be hanging around in a supply closet chatting. Much less doing…other things. She had a class to prepare for. Several classes, in fact.

She tried to think of lesson schedules and was suddenly very aware of Seifer's body almost touching hers. She turned and studied Seifer's face. He was close enough to touch, and the pure unadulterated lust in his eyes turned Quistis on no end. It was almost enough to convince her that she was desirable. Quistis had never really considered herself beautiful, reasoning that it was stupid to be admired for a virtue she'd done nothing to earn.

A arm twined round her waist, a soft whisper in her ear as Seifer half lifted her, half pushed her into the tiny space in the middle of the room. "So, Instructor, fancy seeing _you_ here…." It didn't look as if he was prepared to be patient, and for once, neither was she.

Author's Rant

(or, I really should get a lj account.)

I recently found possibly my favourite fanfic quote ever in a comment over on Making Light.

"Tired as I get of coyness, I've also read stories that go to the other extreme. It's like the characters are living on an emotional diet of Twinkies and whisky."

As for other news, after flirting with the evil that is shortened pairing descriptions (read, Seiftis, Squinoa et al) I have finally seen the light. The conversion occurred at ten forty-five last Saturday night, after reading FFX fanfic and realising that a logical synonym for Tidus/Yuna fiction is 'Tuna'.

HA.

This made me extremely happy.

NB. Several people commented on the door in Squall's office. There is a similar scene in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal in which a petty criminal called Moist gets a second chance to make something of his life. This wasn't coincidental, seeing as my version of Squall pays homage to Pratchett's Patrician. For one thing, they both have large, mostly female fanclubs.

Reviews:

Auronzlah: waves Uh, hi

Breaker-one. I don't do sentimental.

Danger-ranger: ta:D

GhandiOwnsYou: Once more with feeling, thanks.

Ghost140: ta:D

Melete: I love evil chapter breaks. They give authors a sense of power, in an I-might-have-work-up-to-my-neck,-but-I-can-still-make-people-wonder-what-the-hell's-going- to-happen-next way. And I can make sure they're wrong.

Nynaeve77:Edea will be later. The calamari thing also has some bearing on the Ultimate Plot. I'll let you figure out how.

Seatbelts: Uh, guys, the main character has not been kidnapped. Or knocked out. Sorry.:(

Seventhe: Don't you have a rant on your author page now about the evil of shortened pairing-names? Just to tell you, you are finally preaching to the converted. Spread the word.

Sheep: Thanks. For some reason I find it much easier to write about Zell than, say Irvine. He bounces nicely off Seifer.

Sulou: I'm in two minds about Government Bloodhounds. It was the first thing I ever completed, so it has a special place in my hard drive. I tried condensing and rewriting it once, but at the end of the day it's just too bogged down in a fairly typical plot and the fact that I hadn't played the game at all when I wrote it.

Superviolinist: Ta. There will be more conflict. I think it's a given in a fic about mercenaries.

Thistledemon: Ta. I enjoy writing it. Else I wouldn't. It's like crack, I tell you! Sweet addictive literary crack!

Virus: See comment above about the door. It just fitted.

Kate(cardboard tube samurai)


	5. Chapter Four: Hooligans Don't Fall In Lo...

Recovering The Satellites

Hooligans don't fall in love

They just break up others lives

So when I come to you on bended knee

Don't forget my twenty other wives

Gangsters don't fall in love

They just roam from town to town

So when we kiss and we hold and we whisper

Please don't ever write it down.

-The Beautiful South

Chapter Four: Hooligans Don't Fall In Love.

Author's Note: Warning, mild smut ahead. It's rated heavily PG 13- nothing explicit, and certainly nothing worse than you might pick up on the shelves of any Waterstones' or Ottakar's. Relax, and enjoy.

* * *

_It's strange the way sex is like fighting_, Quistis thought as she walked into Seifer's arms.

You always reached a point in both when you could defuse the coming event by a disarming word or glance. Maybe you got two chances, if you were lucky. And sometimes you ignored them all and let battle commence for no other reason than because it seemed a fun thing to do.

She was breathless, but so was he.

The air smelt old, stale with dust and decaying paper. There was a warm spot on her shoulders and neck where the last rays of the setting sun penetrated the single skylight. She looked up at Seifer and raised her hand to trace the lines of light and shadow on his face before pulling him closer. He laced both hands together behind the nape of her neck and kissed the top of her head.

Quistis thought _Dear God, girl. Irvine and Selphie are probably scouring the corridors wondering what's happened, and you're busy contemplating sex in unsanitary places._

_I hope they don't search too hard_.

She buried her nose in the shoulder of Seifer's shirt and stopped thinking. He was large and warm and reassuring, muscles tense as he leaned into her, so she moved closer. He shifted slightly in response, hands moving at the nape of her neck.

There was an almost imperceptible clicking noise.

Quistis felt her hair fall from its severe ponytail. She freed one hand, twisted away from Seifer and grabbed for her hairclip. Missed. Grabbed again. Missed again.

_Damn. Memo to self, never date anybody eight inches taller who thinks he's funny._

The situation being what it was, she decided to ignore him before she noticed that Seifer held her favourite hairclip in his hands. And he had a habit of destroying her personal ornaments.

The clasp was plain, carved from polished blond wood that matched her hair. It matched nearly every outfit she owned. It had been a present, once. Quistis couldn't remember who from.

"Don't ruin that. It's my favourite."

"Hell, I'll buy you another one."

"What with?"

Seifer shrugged. There was an innocent expression on his face as he held the clip.From experience, Quistis knew that this did not bode well.

He held the clip above his head with one hand.

Quistis folded her arms, making it quite clear that she was refusing to lower her dignity by clambering on a table to grab at him, even in play. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, thick, heavy and too hot for comfort.

"Give me that back. I need it."

Seifer grinned, rolled the clip deftly into the palm of his hand and pulled his T-shirt away from his body. Eyes semaphoring her wicked glances from half a metre away, he dropped the clip down the neck of his shirt. "Come and get it."

Quistis narrowed her eyes. " I saw you palm that."

"I didn't."

"It's in your pocket."

Seifer faked big eyes at her. "Is it?"

Quistis sighed and admitted defeat. She walked over to Seifer and took the clip from his jeans pocket, refastening it in her ponytail with exaggerated care.

_Mission accomplished._

Task complete, she grasped Seifer's T shirt and tugged him towards her. She placed his hands firmly on her hips and turned her face upwards, removing her spectacles with one hand. Her manner was calculated and cool, implying _don't you dare not kiss me._

Seifer obliged. He adjusted his position slightly to cradle her waist in a fierce possessive hug and kissed her hard, like he couldn't get enough of her. Quistis reached up to trace the muscles of his throat with her fingernails. They tensed and relaxed one by one as he turned his head slightly to meet her mouth.

Quistis breathed in on a sigh and out on a shaky gasp. _Oh, Hyne, I need this. I don't care if it's wrong._

She lost her balance as he pushed against her and reached out with one hand to steady herself on the corner of a table, continuing the kiss. His tongue traced her earlobe, breath warm on her cheek and Quistis shivered as his free hand slid under the loose waistband of her skirt and carried on down.

A few minutes later Quistis decided the time was ripe to launch her own counter-attack. She looked up at Seifer, his face intent and slightly blurred without her glasses, and smiled sweetly as her palm slipped down in the gap between both their bodies.

Seifer moaned, tightened both arms around her waist and lifted her up to sit on the edge of one of the abandoned tables.

Quistis reached for the ties of Seifer's sweatpants and pulled his hips towards her to loosen the cord as she did so. Task completed, she moved to the clasps at her shoulders that attached her long gloves to the bodice of her peach-coloured vest and undid the first catch.

Seifer's hand stopped her. He pulled back to look at her with teasing eyes. "Oh, no. We keep the uniform. I love it"

So it was going to be that kind of sex.

They were both breathless, senses bypassing articulate language and entering a wordless intimacy. Something neither of them would call love. Desire, certainly, but probably not love. Probably.

Not love.

Time passed.

_This time, it's different._ Quistis thought.

She couldn't camouflage their affair in holiday escapism any more. Or blame post-battle sex syndrome, the kind when you screwed like crazed minks because you'd beaten an army of salivating monsters and needed to prove you were alive.

They were past that, now.

All of the tiny shared self-consciousnesses of a new partner had disappeared, ironed out over the last couple of months. She knew his body well, his scars, his tattoo, his excuse for the tattoo (sixteen, and drunk). No doubt he knew hers equally intimately, Quistis thought.

She forgot her conscience for once and lost herself in sheer tactile pleasure, trying hard to stay quiet. Images came in bright flashes as she opened her eyes and closed them again. Cracked ceiling tiles, glimpsed in blurred flashes as tanned fingers walked across her scars. His weight pushed down on top of her as she tangled hands in his hair, the muscles of his back smooth underneath her greedy fingers.

It took a good five minutes for her to realise that she was lying on her back on the cool plywood of a cheap desk. Just how the hell had she gotten there anyway, seeing that they'd started off standing up?

Seifer groaned, far away, and she wrapped her legs tightly around him. Shortly she became aware that he was speaking to her, muttering _Sssh, they'll hear._

She wanted to protest that she wasn't making any noise, and then her mind whited out in a sudden snowstorm crash that put all operating systems on hold for a second. Seifer pressed one large scarred hand across her mouth, his breath coming fast and urgent, choking off into a cry as he buried his face in her neck, muttering apologies and words that didn't make any sense at all.

Afterwards she lay there in a pleasant kind of haze, thinking about nothing for a while, until she became gradually aware that her back was cold, she had a cramp in her stomach, and she was beginning to have real problems with breathing.

She tapped Seifer gently on one shoulder and he raised her head and looked down at her through drowsy eyes.

"Nnuh?"

"You're squashing me."

He looked down, whispered "Sorry.." and kissed her gently on the nose before rolling off. Obviously not willing to move far for the moment, he moved in close, wrapped one arm against her shoulders and buried his head in her hair. Quistis waited until he was motionless again and lay there, listening to his breathing slowing, skin warm against skin.

It was some time before her mind cleared sufficiently to recognise that he'd fallen asleep. It was cute, really. Seifer didn't sleep all that much.

She slipped one hand beneath her head to cushion her cheekbone against the cheap plywood and let her mind wander. Seifer's warm breath stirred the hair on the back of her neck.

_Oh, there are problems. I know there are problems. But we get on fine and the sex is good. Surely we can sort the rest out.._

Her own eyelids drooped until a tiny noise in the corridor outside brought her to full alertness.

"Seifer?"

"Mmmm?"

Quistis raised her hands above her head and stretched, enjoying the last seconds of lazy afterglow before real life kicked in and pieces of table began to invade her personal space. She wriggled, raised herself up on one elbow and attempted to rearrange her clothing. "We need to leave."

Seifer muttered something which sounded like 'waitaminute' and threw one arm over her chest. Quistis tried to relax again, but the moment had been spoiled. Her uniform was hopelessly crumpled. Sweat slid stickily against her skin. She ran a hand through the roots of her hair and said "I need a shower."

Seifer grunted. He didn't move.

"Come back to mine"

"Thought you didn't want me around." Seifer said. His arm tightened around Quistis's chest and he bent his head to bite at her earlobe.

"I'm allowed to change my mind, aren't I?"

Seifer pulled back and ran one finger gently down her spine. "Shit. Talk about a change of heart. I didn't know I was that good."

Quistis raised one eyebrow and then realised that it was a wasted gesture. After all, he couldn't see her face. "Don't flatter yourself."

Seifer paused, a long silence that Quistis might have interpreted as embarrassment if she hadn't known him well, and then said "Sorry for fucking up your desk toys."

She laughed and sat up, hunting for her clip. "Don't be."

"Damn, I'd been there for ages. I was bored. Just thought it'd be interesting to find out how they worked. It's just ramps by the way, nothing…you don't mind?"

Quistis sighed. "Selphie gave me a few. She thinks they're cute. And then everyone else just assumed that I collected them. It's her you've got to look out for, not me."

"That's okay, then. Shit, I shouldn't have left them like that." He reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. "We should have let them watch."

He interpreted Quistis's horrified expression within a second and added, with a grin. "The kiss."

Quistis's stomach abruptly dropped. She tried out speeches in her head, realising before she'd even spoken that they weren't going to work.

_It's too soon. _

_It's too late. Too _something_, anyway. And you, only occasionally, have the tendency to be an asshole. And yes, so I'm embarrassed, well, so would you be if you were sleeping with somebody all your friends hated._

She stuttered out an excuse, realising as she did so that it was the lamest explanation ever. "It's not you. I'm just not an exhibitionist."

"I'm fine for a quick fuck in the dark, is that it?"

"No!"

"Look, I want to see you in public. I don't care what anybody else thinks.'"

"Then come back to mine."

"I will. Guess I've got no shame. I'll take whatever I can get. But this-" he waved one hand round the dingy little room. "-is shit. I want to show you off."

"I'm not a trophy."

"Didn't say you were."

Quistis fastened the clip into her hair and went to him. "It's complicated."

"So make it simple."

She replied with a hug, retrieved the key from her pocket and opened the door.

Seifer scowled at her.

Quistis didn't care. She knew very well that she was manoeuvring him to end the conversation, and she knew that he knew she was. But most importantly, she knew he didn't care enough about what people thought to walk away.

Luckily for her, she was right.

* * *

Seifer waited a short distance from the closet while Quistis checked to make sure they hadn't moved anything. Not far enough to imply that he didn't intend to take her up on her offer, but far enough, he hoped, to imply that he was still pissed off with her. He stood with his back against the wall under an air conditioning unit, and enjoyed the breeze until he noticed that Quistis seemed to have disappeared. Her vanishing act shouldn't have bothered him at all, but somehow it concerned him enough to make him get off his ass, slouch along to the closet and stick his head in.

"Quistis?"

Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. Seifer turned, saying "How the fuck did you get out of there-" and choked off …_'without me seeing you'_ as he realised that it was Zell.

"Almasy." Zell had obviously decided that they were not on first-name terms.

Seifer grinned. "Chicken-wuss."

"What are you doing here?"

Seifer racked his brain to think up an appropriate excuse. "Loitering."

It was fortunate for him that Quistis stepped out of the cupboard at that minute.

She closed and locked the door without looking up at him, then said "It's all right, Seifer, we didn't…Zell, Uh, hi." just before she turned an extremely bright shade of red.

Zell's gaze flicked from Seifer to Quistis and back to Seifer again. "What have you guys been doing?"

Seifer's brain screamed at him. _Now's your chance! Just look Dincht straight in the eye and tell him you've been screwing each other's brains out on top of a pile of old stationery equipment for the last thirty minutes._

He ignored it, knowing with one look at Quistis's face that he wouldn't.

"We were, um, cleaning."

"Cleaning what?" Zell asked suspiciously.

Seifer's imagination ran dry. "Uh, you know. Stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Stuff that needed cleaning." Seifer said. He folded his arms over his chest and dared Zell to comment.

"He was helping me look for more paper." Quistis broke in.

Seifer watched her stare Zell out, and groaned under his breath. Quistis had few faults, or at least few faults that she'd admit to. In Seifer's view, near top of the list was the fact that she was an extremely bad liar. Number one was that she found thongs too uncomfortable for regular underwear, something which he at least considered a major fault.

So he stood there and tried not to look at her as she swallowed and fidgeted and tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear, no doubt hoping desperately that their activities had left no obvious bruises. Seifer didn't think so, though he certainly hadn't remembered to be gentle. And he was pretty sure he had fingernail marks on his back.

He held his breath. What Zell thought certainly didn't bother him, but Quistis _cared_.

Dincht coughed. "Oh, okay."

Seifer camouflaged his relief with sarcasm. "Yeah, it's good to know I'm being useful."

Zell moved away from them both and said "I suppose if he's with you then it's all right. Squall told me to keep an eye on him."

"Look, I don't need anyone keeping an-"

"It's okay. Look, Zell, got to hurry, that inbox isn't vanishing any time soon, you know."

"Okay. Fine. See you around." Zell said, but he made no motion to move away. Quistis shrugged and started walking, and Seifer followed. He looked back once to watch Zell open the door of the closet, peer in and shut it again with a shrug.

"Hyne," he said sarcastically "…he really is thicker than chickenshit. Bet he makes a great sergeant."

"For your information, yes, he does."

Seifer lengthened his stride and caught up with Quistis, keeping what he hoped was an acceptable distance away. "He nearly caught us. What took you so long?"

"I forgot my letter of acceptance for the instructor's job

"Hell, I didn't even congratulate you properly, did I?"

"No." Quistis's voice was noncommittal, but he knew from the tone of voice that she'd noticed the omission and chalked it up on some kind of balance sheet in her brain somewhere.

"How about a celebratory fuck?" He kept the tone of his voiced casual, when in fact all he wanted to do was nail her to the mattress for the next fourteen hours until they both collapsed with exhaustion or the bed fell apart.

"Don't swear." Her voice sounded automatic, the same old don'tdrink-don'tsmoke-don'tswear mantra drilled into most cadets at puberty. Seifer guessed that her new instructor status was preying on her mind. Usually Quistis never bothered to criticise his language, because Seifer swore habitually and the constant criticisms would have given her a sore throat.

He shrugged and they said nothing else until they reached the door of her bedroom, sneaking through the corridors like SeeDs on a mission. Seifer loitered round a corner while Quistis opened her door and made sure the coast was clear, but within seconds she'd beckoned him in.

He had just enough time to register that her apartment was about five times the size of his and missing the scent of wet socks, tobacco and machine oil that all of his rooms seemed to acquire after a day or two before she locked the door, leaned on it and held a finger to her lips.

Seifer rolled his eyes at her, whispering "_Okay, so we have to be quiet, what's the big deal?"_ He couldn't believe his luck as she brought her mouth very close to his ear and said "I'm having a shower, do you want one?"

Things happened very fast after that.

Later, the only thing Seifer would recall with clarity was that five eventful minutes later he decided that he was, without doubt, the luckiest man in the world.

The rest of the night passed pleasantly and in silence, except for one whispered conversation.

"_Hell, no. That's your side."_

"_It's your side now."_

"_I'd say it was more in the middle."_

"_You're sleeping over there. And that's final."_

"_Not such a big deal anyway. It's not like I sleep."_

"_Fine. It's not such a big deal, so you sleep on the wet patch."_

"_Harsh."_

"_It's _your_ wet patch."_

"_Low low. Hey, come over here. "_

"_Uh-uh, No. I have to get up in the morning."_

"_So?"_

"_You don't have to be contemptuous of everybody who needs more than four hours of sleep a night, you know._

"_I'm not."_

" _You are."_

"_I'm just contemptuous of everyone."_

"…………_goodnight."_

"'_Night."_

* * *

Quistis stirred sleepily.

Surprisingly, she'd slept well. She'd woken once in the night to find Seifer sprawled out beside her, snoring despite his protestations. Asleep, he invaded more territory than he'd ever managed conscious.

Quistis threw one arm out into the snarl of bedclothes, and found..nothing.

She opened her eyes.

The room was flooded with light, illuminating that the bed beside her was very, very empty.

So that was that. He'd gone.

She scrubbed at her face once again and then paused, sniffing. A familiar bitter scent hung in the air.

Coffee.

She raised herself on her elbows and looked around.

Seifer sat on the foot of the bed, half-turned away from her. There was something golden in his hands.

Quistis told her self that she wasn't relived at all as she reached silently for her glasses. She slotted them neatly on her nose, as she did every morning, and thought that she really should buy some contact lenses, as she did every morning. It wasn't that she couldn't afford a pair, but she'd got so used to wearing spectacles after nearly ten years. She flicked strands of her hair out from behind the earpieces and felt her pupils contract sharply as the world came into focus around her.

Seifer held her whip, Save The Queen. She watched as he drew a sharpening stone slowly down the blade, blew carefully on its edge and wiped it with a clean cloth. He didn't seem to be doing that much damage, so she slumped down in the bed and stretched one leg out to tickle Seifer in the small of his back with a bare toe.

"Don't you sleep?"

"Woke up early."

Quistis yawned. "Your roommates must have loved you."

Seifer shrugged. "Didn't matter. I shared with Raijin to start with."

"Come on. Even Disciplinary Committees don't get whole student dorms to themselves."

"Fuujin had the other room. Soon as Raijin got the guts to ask Fuu out they moved in together. Got a room to myself."

Quistis smiled, remembering his student reputation. "Because nobody else wanted to share with you."

"Their loss."

She held an arm out for Save The Queen. "I have to go. I've a meeting at eight."

Seifer turned to peer at the clock. He looped the chain-and-leather shank round his fingers and laid the whip in her hands.

Quistis pulled herself up into a sitting position, wincing slightly, and ran her fingers over the weapon. If she was to be completely honest with herself, she expected some kind of damage. To her surprise, the whip was cleaned to perfection. The leather was supple and well greased, the thick bundle of spikes on the end of the whip razor-sharp.

Despite herself, she was impressed. "What time is it?"

"Six-thirty, or something near." Seifer said. "You better hurry."

Quistis groaned. She would have liked to lie in bed and yank the covers over her head, but such luxuries weren't permitted when you were a SeeD. "What about you?"

"I'll be gone by the time you leave."

"What are you going to do?"

Seifer shrugged at her and then smiled, a lopsided sharp grin which made him look younger and much more charming. "I'll find something."

"As long as it doesn't involve destruction of school property. Maybe go find Zell, ask him."

"Maybe." Seifer said, in a tone of voice that meant he wasn't going to go anywhere near Zell. "I still can't believe that fuckwit didn't notice us."

Quistis shrugged and gave her duvet one last regretful glance before she shook off the covers. She crossed the room to get clean clothes from her wardrobe, pretending to ignore the slight grin on Seifer's face. "He noticed us, he's just-"

"Stupid." Seifer said. He flopped backwards across the crumpled bed and retrieved her whip, holding it up at arms' length above his head and squinting against the sunlight to check for any imperfections he'd missed.

"I was going to say innocent. He just doesn't think along those lines. Just be thankful it wasn't Selphie. She'd have had us figured out in a minute."

"More like a second." Seifer lowered Save The Queen, obviously satisfied, and fished Quistis's favourite sharpening stone out of his pocket with a guilty look. Quistis raised her head long enough to glare at him and then went back to clipping on her long gloves. She brushed her hair her usual thirty strokes and twisted it into a neat bun.

"Suppose I better leave."

"You suppose right." Quistis mellowed her harsh words with a smile. "I'll se you tonight."

Seifer gave her a wave, and slipped out of the door. Quistis smiled goodbye at him and turned her attention back to the letter in her hand.

* * *

Squall read the letter.

It was brief and tattered, its headed parchment ringed with the stains from coffee mugs. The writing was in three colours, as if the sender had mislaid it several times and started again with different shades of pens.

_Squall Leonhart_

_C/o Balamb Garden_

_Balamb Town_

_Balamb Island_

_BALAMB_

_Dear Son_

_Well it looks like it's time to write again! It's been a while since I last heard from you. You must be working too hard and I've got the perfect cure. How about a visit to Esthar? Bring all of your friends if you want, we've got enough room, and it's the midsummer festival, so there should be lots to do. I can't wait to see you and do some father-son things. Ellone is already here so it would be a real family reunion! Kiros sent you an invitation for the Garden band but don't worry if you haven't gotten it yet. _

_Things in the city continue quiet. Odine is working on a big project, publishing some book. He showed me the proofs yesterday but it looks like he's the only person who'll be able to make any sense of it. I know you still don't trust him but he promised not to ask Rinoa any more sorceress questions after you threatened to throw him off the Ragnarok last year. Weather good. Monsters bad to Very Bad. _

_Kiros and Ward send their love. _

_See you soon _

_Love _

_Dad._

Squall sighed and thought, as always, how amazing it was that an ex-journalist could be so persistently incoherent.

It irritated him.

And Laguna's letters were a model of propriety compared to his actual personality. Frustrating, really, Squall thought, how he'd discovered a family only when he had no room for them. After he'd spent his entire childhood training himself to be selfsufficient.

He occasionally found it ironic, when he had the time.

The letter was dated two weeks previously, and he still hadn't replied. It had come with a gift, some kind of ridiculously intricate and expensive machine. Odine brand, it looked like. It was about the size of a paperback novel, welded together out of fine silver wire, tiny cogs and metal plates. Squall wondered if they'd ever find out what it did.

"Squall!"

He looked up from his position on the couch, blinking in the strong morning sunlight.

Rinoa smiled down at him.

She obviously hadn't been awake for long. Her dark hair was tangled into locks down her back and she wore a pale blue dressing gown. She walked across the room and leant on the back of the sofa. Squall watched her appreciatively.

Her long hair brushed his neck. "Morning, sweetheart."

Squall reached up and kissed her in reply." Mmm."

Rinoa leant over the sofa and took the tiny machine from Squall's hands. "What's this?"

"Laguna sent it me."

"A present? What does it do?"

Squall shrugged and turned back to his letter.

So far he had managed to write one line, apart from the address. One finger hovered over the Caps Lock key.

_Dear Father/Dad/President/Mr. Loire/Sir/Laguna…._

It said a lot about Squall's father that he'd entered the Galbadian army as a private and ended up President of Esthar. It said even more about him that his promotion had been a complete accident.

Rinoa fiddled with the buttons and keys studding Laguna's present. "Who's writing?"

"Laguna."

"Honestly. You could at least call him Dad."

Squall pressed the delete key, obliterating the unsuccessful sentence. "It's-uh. It's-difficult."

"At least he's trying." Rinoa pointed out. "Why's he send you this?"

"Hyne knows."

"What does it do?"

"Not sure. He probably grabbed the first thing on his desk and shoved it in a bag. He posted me an elastic band once."

"I'm sure it was sent with love." Rinoa said, and smiled. She pressed a button on the machine and dropped it as it whirred into life. Seconds later she screamed, vaulted over the sofa back and landed untidily in Squall's lap.

Squall adopted defensive manoeuvres and rolled off the sofa, pinning both of them flat on the floor. When the furniture was safely between them and the unseen threat he raised his head cautiously.

Rinoa's shoulders shook. Muffled sobs escaped from between her hands.

Squall touched her hair, gently. "Rinoa?"

She rolled over underneath him, her eyes red.

The sight triggered GF whispers in the back of Squall 's mind. He raised his arms to summon, and then realised that she was laughing. For a second he stared down at her and frowned, then brushed dusty brown hair from his eyes and rolled away from her.

"What's so funny?"

Rinoa giggled. Her dressing gown was dishevelled in a way that would have been revealing if she hadn't been wearing one of her favourite body stockings underneath. "Look over there."

A strange humming sound emanated from behind the couch. Squall raised one eyebrow, intrigued despite himself, and stood, peering over the back of the sofa.

He saw nothing but Laguna's present. It rested on one side on the carpet, and didn't move.

"What?"

Rinoa twisted from a half-sitting position and swept her long hair back from her face. "I don't understand. It…jumped."

"Jumped?"

"Okay twitched. Squall, it had little legs." She clambered onto the couch and peered cautiously down its back at the strange object.

"Rinoa, I haven't…"

"Got time, I know." She gave him a rueful little grin. "Go touch it." She watched Squall glance ruefully at the blank screen of his laptop and sighed. "I swear. If it doesn't, I'll….write your letter!"

"To Laguna?"

"Who else?"

Squall looked at her, knowing that she probably knew exactly what he was thinking. He could almost sense it, through their bond. Curiosity, and faint amusement. "I guess."

He walked over to the small machine and poked it with the toe of his boot, hard enough to jolt any dormant machinery into action but not hard enough to break anything delicate. It was a fine line that most SeeDs learned to tread carefully.

Nothing happened.

Rinoa giggled. "Kick it harder."

"I'll break it. Wait. It's working."

They both watched as the machine rocked a few times. Squall, considerably more experienced by now than he'd ever wanted to be with the intricacies of Garden's maintenance system, noted analytically that it hardly made a sound. Which made it expensive machinery.

Maybe his father really had sent him something useful, for once.

The machine rocked again and revealed a yellow Post-it note slapped on to the side of the device. Squall reached down and pulled it off, and the movement seemed to spur the contraption into movement. It rocked violently, flipped itself over onto its long axis, and extended one spindly leg.

Squall tapped the back of the sofa to get Rinoa's attention. The glue from the note stuck his fingers to the back of the upholstery, and then as he tried to wipe it off, to his dress trousers. He swiped at it in mild irritation. "Is that what it did before?"

Rinoa shook her head. She detached the note from his hand with casual competency and read it out. "_'I thought you could use this for your office?'_ Squall, exactly what did he send…?"

She fell silent, watching as the machine extruded five more identical legs, very fast. It rose a couple of inches off the carpet, mechanical tendons expanding and contracting, and then sped towards the sofa, across the carpet and over the toe of Squall's boot, laying a fine silvery trail as it went. It was half way up the back of the couch and climbing before Rinoa hit it with a cushion.

There was a bang, and a small explosion.

Squall reached over and plucked the machine from the furniture, not without difficulty. It lay in his hands like a dead spider, all six tiny legs curled and couched underneath its body. He looked down at it, and at the thin metallic line it had laid across his shoe, and then walked to one of the rubbish chutes set into the walls and dropped the present down it.

Rinoa knelt on the carpet and touched the machine's tracks. "You threw it out?"

"Yes." Squall said. His tone brooked no argument. He picked up his discarded laptop and frowned down at it.

Rinoa brushed staples from the carpet. "It's not like we even needed a stapler. And even if we did, a normal one would have done. Maybe one with sparkles or a nice logo." She paused, then said. "It must have had some controls, somewhere."

"Too late."

"You should still say thanks. I think it's funny.

Squall blinked, remembering the logo. "Trust Odine."

Rinoa's voice turned suddenly steely. "I don't." She stood for a moment, hair hiding her face, and then shook herself as if nothing had happened and curled up on the sofa next to Squall. She peeked over his shoulder, reading Laguna's letter, and then said softly. "Did he really invite the Garden band to play at Midsummer?"

Squall shrugged.

Rinoa's voice held a slight edge. "Squall?"

"Yes. And I turned it down. We're mercenaries. Not entertainers."

"They play at the Festival." Her voice was so edged you could have duelled with it.

"They do. But that's a Garden celebration. For SeeDs. It's our time. If our band did play at events, then it would look bad. Greedy."

"I see. But Squall, he's your father. You could at least have written him a reply two weeks ago." She pointed to the date. "Back when you got the letter."

Squall hit the space bar. "I do reply."

"Proper letters, not memos."

"It's difficult. I don't have time."

"You could make time. Squall, you're the commander."

"So everyone reminds me." Squall said, and picked staples from his boot.

"Esthar's real pretty in summer. We could both go."

"Rinoa, admissions start in September."

"So delegate."

"I can't."

Rinoa settled more deeply on the couch and drew her feet up underneath her. "You're just making excuses."

"I'm not."

"You so are. Admit it, he disturbs you. Squall. Look at me. You'll never be like that. You'd never be like that in a million years."

"Good."

"What's the problem? He's rich and talented and really laid back -okay, Esthar kind of runs itself anyway, but still. Just because you're both different doesn't mean he doesn't care."

"I just _saw_ him."

"In a business meeting, Squall! It's not the same."

"We went to visit both of them in Esthar."

"Squall, that was a year ago."

"It was?" Squall said. He peered more closely at the date on the top of Laguna's letter.

"Yes."

"Okay, we'll go."

She bounced up off the couch. "Great. I'll go pack."

"…just not now…"

"Squall! He loves you!"

Squall typed another line of text. He scowled and then deleted it. "That's great. I just wish he'd stop showing it."

"I think it's sweet. He writes to you once a month, and really, Squall, he must have much more work than you to do, he's got a whole _country_ to run."

"He's got Kiros and Ward."

"And you've got me and Irvine and Zell and Quistis and Selphie! And Seifer, I guess, now." she added, doubtfully.

Squall raised one eyebrow.

"Let's go. I know you'd love to see Ellone."

"Ellone doesn't need me showing up every day. She's got her own life."

"It's hardly every day. It's hardly every _year_. Not everybody values privacy as much as you do, you know."

Squall sighed. Right now, retiring to Centra like the previous commander of Balamb seemed like a perfect idea. Damn the circumstances. He temporised. "Whatever. When did we last see your father?"

"You know that, silly. At the annual veterans' dinner."

"In a business meeting. It's not the same." he mimicked.

Rinoa pouted. "Not fair. You want to go see my father? Then we'll go see my father."

"No."

"He just wants you to make an honest women of me. He's protective."

"He's annoying." Squall pointed out. 'Protective' wasn't the half of it. General Caraway had never approved of Rinoa's quasi-military activities. He disliked the idea of his only daughter dating the commander in chief of Balamb even less. In fact, he liked the idea of his daughter dating anybody at all about as much as he liked the idea of her being a sorceress. In Caraway's perfect world, Squall thought, Rinoa would have moved to a convent at age twelve.

Rinoa smiled. "I think that's something we both agree on. Okay, we don't have to see my father, then. Just promise me we'll go to Esthar."

"Whatever."

"That's not a promise."

"Okay then, yes. This year sometime." That gave him six months. Surely something could happen in six months to postpone a visit to Laguna. He'd see to it.

"I'll send a letter."

"_I'll _send the letter." Squall replied. He wrote another line of text and erased it seconds later, thinking that he could always have Xu compose a short letter.

He sighed. That always seemed like taking the easy option. And he was pretty sure Laguna would be able to tell the difference between his and Xu's writing style, and next time Squall went to visit he would be slightly diffident and not hurt at all in any way.

"You won't ." Rinoa said, with certainty.

"I promise I will."

Rinoa pointed to the blank screen. "You could start by writing it. Tell him we'll visit." She looked thoughtful, then said ""We could even stop off at your mother's on the way."

It had given Squall a shock the first time she'd said that. Even though Matron had been much more of a mother to him than anybody else, it was hard to erase the mental image of two perfect parents that he'd always hoped for as a kid. And instead he got a grave somewhere near Winhill, a father who was nothing like his silent son, and a quiet middle-aged couple, one of whom was recovering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder miles from anywhere.

He thought of Edea and then said "You're right."

"She could use some more company. I'll take her some more knitted socks."

Squall gave up the letter and closed his laptop in disgust. He'd write later. " She doesn't need socks. It's hot in Centra."

"Take her something. A book." Rinoa said. She hopped off the couch and stretched in a graceful arc made limber by her morning yoga lessons. The stretch turned into a dying swan position and ended in a half-lotus, one foot rested easily on the opposing thigh.

"She doesn't read." Squall pointed out. He checked his watch and realised with irritation that he should have been elsewhere five minutes ago.

Rinoa pulled herself to her feet, her voice a touch pleading. "I know, I know, but we have to try. You know we all visit her, right Squall? All of us?"

Squall tried not to move a muscle in his face. He could feel Rinoa's distress, her tension, and was having a hard job concealing his own feelings from her. "I know."

"She'll be all right? Won't she?"

Squall sighed, and spoke the truth. "I …don't know."

He went to his breakfast meeting and forgot all about the previous conversation. A few minutes later he heard Angelo bark and seconds after that, realised he was picking up confusion/consternation/concern from Rinoa.

_You all right?_

Her mental voice was tinged with amusement. _Nothing I can't handle._

_Are you sure?_

_Sure._

_Okay._ Squall thought, and returned to his work. He would remember the conversation again, slightly later, and wish that he hadn't believed her.

But then again, Rinoa was in the main compound of Balamb. What could possibly happen to disturb her?

* * *

Seifer stared down at the main hall of Balamb. In the thirty or so minutes since he'd left Quistis, the corridors had filled up. From fifty metres above the main courtyard he watched SeeDs bustling around, some in full dress uniform, some wearing casual clothes. Among them swarmed packs of uniformed children, lined up neatly despite their age.

Seifer smiled. SeeD kids didn't behave like normal children. From the day they were brought into Balamb's halls at the age of twelve they lived a strictly regimented and controlled life, learning the military arts. It didn't mean they wouldn't fool around, far from it. It just meant that when they did, the effects were measured in terms of blast radius rather than spilt milk.

Which was one of the reasons he was up here, watching.

The fact that the second floor hallway was an administrative level and that he was therefore unlikely to meet Zell Dincht had absolutely nothing to do with it.

He knew that he probably should go down, get something to eat and find out about assignments. But for now, idling suited him. Seifer was fairly sure that any task Zell found for him would be one he'd hate.

A sharp bark rang out. Seifer ignored it, lost in thought.

Approximately three seconds later an enraged collie dog launched herself at his throat.

Angelo wasn't messing around. The first inkling Seifer got that something was wrong was the swift patter of claws on linoleum flooring. No bark, no growl and certainly no warning sign. He'd already half turned to find out what the strange ticking sound was, so Angelo's jump carried him to the floor rather than knocking him into the wall, a situation which would have been considerably less painful. Standing, the worst injury he'd have collected was a swift bite to the shins.

Seifer had always known that Angelo was trained to kill. It wasn't something he'd ever taken seriously. The dog hadn't been around most of the time when they'd dated, back in Timber. Who knew where it went? But she was always there when she thought Rinoa needed her.

Like now.

_Oh, fuck._

Seifer rolled, trying to throw the collie dog off. He failed. Angelo's teeth snapped at his throat, lips drawn back in a snarl to expose her fangs. Seifer grabbed at her collar with one hand, his left reaching across his body for his gunblade. Just as he realised that Hyperion was in Squall's office and unlikely to be available for use, two things happened in quick succession. Seifer's injured wrist, already sulking from the absence of care and attention its owner had been giving it, gave up and died, and the dog lunged forwards.

Seifer stopped frantically searching for weapons and started trying to push Angelo off. It would have been hard with two operational hands. It was near impossible with one. Fifty pounds of enraged collie dog on his chest made it hard for him to catch his breath, so shouting for help would have been out of the question even if he'd wanted to.

_Yeah, right. I'd rather die._

Angelo's teeth clicked shut a millimetre from his nose. He punched her as hard as he could. The dog whimpered, then snarled, and Seifer began to reconsider.

There was the sound of running feet.

"I-argh. Will you-get-this-bitch off my…Hyne, no, not down _there_.."

"Angelo!"

The voice sounded faintly familiar, but Seifer wasn't paying attention. He locked his left hand into the dog's collar, using the elbow of his opposite arm to fend off dribble and snapping fangs. Hyne, the thing had as many teeth as Ifrit, and worse breath. A lucky blow caught the dog on her muzzle, and she whined again.

"_Angelo!_"

The dog glanced up, whimpering. She backed smartly off, lifting her head from his throat. Seifer lowered his arms and released her collar cautiously. The movement provoked Angelo into snarling. It seemed more of a threat than any real attack, but even so, Seifer didn't take his eyes off the dog.

He heard a gasp from behind Angelo, a small intake of breath.

Rinoa.

_Shit._

Seifer froze on the floor, strings of dog drool drying on his shoulder, arms striped with the red raised weals of blunt claws.

Rinoa stood equally motionless, one hand buried in the thick ruff of fur round her dog's neck. Angelo growled, softly, an undercurrent to the cold frozen silence that spread out from their meeting like a ripple in a puddle.

The young sorceress regained her composure first. "Angelo. Go."

The dog whined.

"_Go_, Angelo."

The dog recognised the tone of her mistress's voice and slunk off, her bushy tail between her legs. She paused once to give Seifer an evil look and then disappeared round the nearest corner.

Leaving Rinoa, alone.

Neither of them noticed the partly open office door a metre behind Seifer's back. Rinoa stared at Seifer like she'd seen a ghost.

Seifer had eyes for nothing else.

It had been two years, and the thing that struck Seifer most was how little she had changed. A heavy ring hung round her neck on a fine silver chain, her posture maybe that little bit more assured, confident now, dark eyes that little bit less trusting. But she was still the same.

Seifer opened his mouth to say……whatever you said to your ex-girlfriend. Whatever you were supposed to say to somebody you'd done your best to love.

_Hey. Remember me? I tried to kill you?_

_Remember that summer in Timber, when we went to the resistance meets? Remember sitting by bonfire after bonfire, your eyes in the firelight as you watched sparks drift up into the darkness? Remember Adel's broad hands, red-tipped, clawed, reaching towards you? Remember clinging onto Leonhart like he could save you from drowning?_

_Do you remember at all?_

Rinoa's mouth tightened, as if making a difficult decision. She took one step forwards and offered her hand.

Part of Seifer laughed at the absurdity of it all -even half-lying on his back on the floor his head reached well above Rinoa's knees. The rest of him smelt _sorceress _and had him up onto his feet before he even had time to think, and probably with more scrambling than he would have considered dignified, if he'd been watching himself.

Rinoa looked puzzled. She withdrew her hand and spoke, her voice clear. "It's all right, Seifer. It's just been ..a long time."

Seifer's first instinct was to get the hell out of there, but something kept him standing there, looking at Rinoa.

He closed his eyes and opened them.

_Still there._

_Shit._

Large as life, still as beautiful, and looking as if she'd got the happy ending she'd always deserved.

Which made him feel guilty as hell.

He opened his mouth to say something and then wondered what. Somehow he didn't think an apology was going to cut it, not this time. Wasn't like he'd ever been any good at them, anyway.

"Seifer?"

He closed his eyes again. Maybe it was some kind of sorceress thing, but he could almost feel the bond between her and Squall. Did she not understand how deeply the magic ran inside her?

Rinoa said his name again. "Seifer?" Her speech carried echoes that rattled round the walls like shrapnel.

_Seifer! Stop it! Haven't you done enough? I know you're not like that!_

Seifer opened his eyes again and saw Rinoa, closer this time, her dark eyes burning like cigarette ends.

"Seifer?"

"Can't go back." he muttered, and wondered why it felt like he was reading from a script.

_No more..please?_

Rinoa vanished as the corridor swam in front of Seifer's eyes. It seemed perfectly natural that there were two women in front of him instead of one. An odd sensation, part of him noted analytically. He raised his head to look into a pale face, and felt fear. But he was her Knight. Nobody would oppose her while he still breathed.

_Watch closely, Squall!_

"Seifer?"

The other woman disappeared and left only Rinoa.

He held one arm up. "Stay away from me."

"Are you all right? You look-"

_Are you going to step forwards? Retreat? You have to decide._

"Stay back."

"Do you want help?"

_The adult in you is telling you to back off… you don't know the right answer, you want help, don't you? You want to be saved from this predicament._

"Shut up!"

"Are you…drunk?"

_Don't be afraid…afraid to ask for help._

"I'm not…"

_Come with me…._

"You're drunk, aren't you?"

And then the real world swung back and left Seifer staggering but seeing straight for what felt like the first time in hours.

Rinoa stood in front of him with her hands on his shoulders, her mouth a tight white line you could have used as a ruler. She looked slightly worried, and extremely scared. "Are you?"

"No.. I mean, no, I'm not drunk."

"I meant to say I'm sorry."

Seifer scowled. "You're sorry? Sorry for what? What the fuck have you got to be sorry for? "

Rinoa replied with dignity. "I'm sorry, but I haven't got time to talk to you now. Maybe later. I'm in a rush."

"Like that bothers me."

"And I'm sorry that you feel that way."

"I don't give a shit what you feel."

She turned away. "You never did."

Seifer shivered and headed in the opposite direction. _Hyne, I was in a fucking good mood, as well. Why did she have to come along and ruin it?_

He was halfway to the lift, with no particular aim than to escape maybe to the next galaxy, and spend the next hour concocting strategies to avoid her for the following year, when she called him back again.

"Seifer?"

He turned and saw her standing alone in the centre of the corridor, at the other end, her dog nowhere to be seen. _SeeD must have done her some good, after all. That little breathy voice never used to carry so well._

He waited for her to say something but she just stood there, her hands clenched at her sides as if she was attempting something difficult.

"What?"

"I never thanked you."

If it had been anybody else Seifer would have just assumed they were being sarcastic and treated the comment with the rich contempt it deserved. But because it was Rinoa, he just stood there like a dummy. "What the hell _for_?"

"You sacrificed yourself for us."

Seifer frowned, trying to work out whether he was supposed to be feeling good about being dumb enough to let Ultimecia possess him. "Us?"

"The Forest Owls."

Seifer did laugh, then. "Screw that. I fucked up. Didn't sacrifice myself for anyone. Especially not that bunch of idiot assholes. I was stupid, Rin."

Rinoa just stood there.

Seifer wished she'd leave. "Didn't even know you were there."

It was a lie, but he didn't care.

_Don't you understand? I was trying to protect you. You, and that bunch of fuckwits they call SeeDs now._

He tried again, thinking of anything to make her go. "We were already over by then. Just a summer thing. That's all it was."

This time he didn't give her a chance to reply. He just left.

* * *

Rinoa lasted all of two seconds before she fled back to the apartments she shared with Squall. It wasn't long, but it was long enough to see Seifer round the corner and out of sight, and that was what mattered.

Haven reached, she curled up in a corner, clutched a cushion to her chest and thought, not of Seifer, but of Squall.

It had been two years ago, and they'd been in a safehouse in Timber, just after Deling's assassination. Her first taste of real danger, a thrill to be sharing a room with all the competent SeeDs. It had been the first time she'd glimpsed anything more than duty behind Squall's icy façade.

They'd ended up discussing Seifer, something he would have relished if only he'd have known. A eulogy, of sorts. The petite, kindly SeeD in the strange yellow dress had offered her a tissue and encouraged her to talk, and a combination of shock and a stranger's kindness had spurred her into confessing things she'd never told to her closest friends.

So many years ago, now. So many words.

"_I don't really know. I think I was in love."_ Speaking, she'd known that she hadn't been. Not really.

"_Was he?"_ Selphie's voice had been hungry for gossip. She said "_I can't imagine-"_ and then stopped, flustered and saying how Rinoa obviously knew Seifer a lot better than she did.

Rinoa smiled, ruefully. She said, half to herself; _"I wonder how he felt."_

At that moment, she truly hadn't known. Later, she'd worked out that Seifer had probably been more in love with the idea of having somebody to protect than with her. In the Timber safehouse, she'd had no idea.

Selphie pressed her. She's been just as hungry for gossip two years ago as she was now. _"Do you still like him?"_ she'd asked, sounding more like she was discussing a hot date than a deceased love affair.

Zell had muttered something which sounded very like "_Even if she did, not much point now, seeing as he's just been executed_." The tall, blonde SeeD, Quistis, had clipped him round the ear and hissed at him to shut up.

"_If I didn't, I wouldn't be talking about it. It was last summer."_

The words conjured up images of flames spiralling into an indigo late-summer sky. She'd braided her hair and gone to meet her friends down by the railroad tracks. They met there every dry night to drink beer and recite bad folk poetry. There had been one song, about imagining a world at peace, that had seemed hopelessly idealistic then, but they'd sung it anyway. She'd played guitar.

"_I was sixteen."_

And then one night she'd met a cute guy who moved much more decisively than the others of her age, making the rest of them look like children. He'd sat down beside her and given her a charming grin, and part of her had watched as the night went on and he became thoroughly charmed in his turn. What else but magic could describe those lazy august evenings?

And then, after the summer's end, she'd turned to Seifer because he knew the right people and seemed like a person who could get things done. Any port in a storm, she'd thought, but that summer had been just the beginning of a hurricane that had swept them all up in its winds.

" _Lots of fond memories."_

She surfaced as if from the surface of a pond, shaking memories like water droplets from her hair. Her face was half-buried in the cushion. Dust particles danced in the air around her, looking almost like the aftermath of spells, and she realised her eyes were wet.

_I've had dreams like that ones that felt like I was awake, but that's all they were. Just dreams. And you always were a dreamer. _

_Maybe that's why we got along so well.

* * *

_

_I can't remember why the hell we dated in the first place_, Seifer thought.

He'd craved some kind of stimulant after meeting Rinoa. Cigarettes were out, but luck and strong coffee brought him to the cafeteria, where he sat with his feet up on a chair and gouged holes in the soft top of one of the dining tables with the hilt of a stainless steel dinner knife.

_Rinoa. Now there's a whole can of worms. _

When he got right down to it, getting down to it had been the most important part of the relationship. Like another incarnation, then. Now she was someone else, not interested, and neither was he.

Or so he told himself.

It wasn't that he was bothered anymore, that door had closed and he had nothing to gain from forcing the locks. It had all been a long time ago. And he'd been left with the memories.

Seifer sighed, jumped off his train of thought and stared round the cafeteria.

The room was pleasant enough, expensively understated in a spoiled rich Garden way. The buffet was open and Dincht's own personal hot dog tray was full.

The food had never been that good, but it had never bothered him. The catering staff had long since figured out that all you wanted on your plate after a long day fighting monsters was lots, and they'd always came through. It looked as if there had been changes. The food smelt oddly fishy and had fewer legs than he remembered.

He finished his coffee.

There was a small snack bar to one side of the main serving hatch that was always open, dispensers for a dozen kinds of soft drinks. It was interfering with Seifer's first idea, which was to go find something toxic and drink it until he couldn't remember why the hell he'd returned to Balamb, never mind why he'd dated Squall's girlfriend.

The room was crowded, but somehow he'd ended up alone. The few people who might have shared: namely, Quistis, Fuu and Raijin, were nowhere to be seen.

Seifer refilled his coffee and filled a plate from the few dishes without tentacles.

He ate fast enough to ensure he didn't actually taste the food, and in between mouthfuls, he watched. The view was particularly good from the cafeteria windows, but mostly he watched other people watching him.

It was kind of fun, in a way. If he looked up from his food fast enough, he could catch people staring, and then they'd either have to meet his eyes or look away fast and pretend they hadn't been staring in the first place.

Most looked away.

He swallowed the last bite of his meal and was wondering where to go next when he glanced up and met a pair of eyes that didn't waver.

Squall pulled out a chair and sat down across the table.

Seifer sized him up warily, but Squall just started eating something that looked disgustingly healthy. He ate methodically and neatly but without any sign of relish.

The ex-knight watched him and drank the last of his coffee. It seemed wrong, somehow, to just leave, so he sat there and wondered what he was going to say if Squall up and accused him of scaring Rinoa.

He wasn't exactly sure what had happened, but she'd looked pretty damn scared of it all.

Eventually Squall finished his salad, looked up at Seifer and asked "Have you finished the paperwork Xu gave you?"

Seifer stabbed moodily at his empty plate and said nothing.

Squall lined up his knife and fork tidily alongside each other. "I'm going to interpret that as 'no.' Did you read the manual?"

Seifer thought of the SeeD manual, all three hundred and sixty pages of leather-bound insomnia cure. He'd looked it up once, when he got bored of inventing facts about himself but with all the other things on his mind, the book might have been written in High Trabian for all the sense he'd made of it.

"No. Look, half of those forms I can't finish. Can't prove anything. Seems like you can't be alive without a piece of paper that says you are. Or dead. It's like a bureaucratic black hole."

"You didn't save any of your details?"

Seifer just looked at him.

Squall sighed. "Just do what you can, and I'll get the office to sort out the rest. Okay? And one tip, you might like to read the manual. Especially-" and this time he raised his head and looked Seifer straight in the eyes, "Regulation 35. Got that?"

"Why?"

"Whatever. Just read it."

Seifer scowled, trying to work out what Squall meant by that. "Fine."

He pretended interest in his empty plate, waiting for Squall to leave.

When he didn't Seifer stood up, said casually "Guess I might as well take a look, then." and left.

He half-expected Squall to shout after him, but he didn't. In fact, as Seifer pushed his chair back, he could have sworn that Leonhart looked almost pleased.

He stopped on his way out the door and filled one of the tall ceramic mugs with coffee, in case finding the relevant paragraph took him more than five minutes.

The library wasn't far, and at this time, bound to be more than half-empty.

It was.

Seifer snagged a copy of the manual from one of the tall wooden shelves and took it to a desk. Just carrying the thing made his injured wrist ache and thinking about reading it in any way made his head hurt.

He leafed through the pages, searching for Squall's favourite rule.

What was it again?

Ah.

_Regulation 135. _

_Use of Garden vehicles is restricted to SeeDs on official missions and students visiting Balamb Town only. Applications from students wishing to use a vehicle may be granted only at the discretion of a senior member of staff._

It seemed a strange thing for Squall to say. Seifer skimmed through the surrounding pages, hoping for a clue, but nothing jumped out at him.

_Regulation 46. In a time of crisis, it is sometimes necessary for one SeeD to sacrifice himself for the sake of the mission. Should this happen, every attempt should be made to save all team members…. _

_Regulation 35. Family visits are encouraged. Please apply in writing to the junior representative, or to your senior officer. One visit per term only, though permits may be granted for additional visits or extended leave by special dispensation._

_Regulation 165. No SeeD is to engage in a battle above his or her abilities unless there is no other choice…_

Nothing.

Irritated, Seifer slammed the book shut. He couldn't work Leonhart out at all.

Did he want him to use a Garden car? Or was he really telling Seifer that it was okay to visit Balamb town once in a while? That his parole wasn't restricted to the building itself?

Either way, he figured it was worth a try.

He picked up his coffee cup and made his way down to the parking lot.

Like the rest of Garden, it was almost, but not exactly, the way he remembered it. It seemed..smaller, somehow. There were a few cars, the usual ATX-11 SeeD troop carriers and a few boxy four-man vehicles. All grey, all ugly and all strictly functional. All except one.

There was a small car in the furthest parking lot, a sleek little softtop painted gunmetal grey with a matching grey logo stencilled discreetly on the door. It stuck out like a sore thumb among the scarred military vehicles and resembled a chrome bullet with wheels.

Seifer knew absolutely fuck all about cars, but he knew what he liked, or at least he knew what he thought he liked, and he liked this car.

He walked closer to get a better look, forgetting momentarily about his plan for escape. He admired the tyres with contact patches the size of cushions, the fins, the subtle bodywork. Probably ran for miles on a quart of ethanol and cornered like a champion race chocobo, too.

Surely Garden didn't own anything this nice?

It took his brain a second to catch up before he realised that they didn't. Of course. The decal on the door wasn't exactly obvious. It was probably meant to be discreet, knowing Squall. Stencilled onto the door of the softtop was a snarling lion's head.

Leonhart.

Seifer snorted and turned away from Squall's car. He slotted his ID in the ignition slot of the nearest vehicle, and waited for authorisation.

Red. No way.

He tried again.

Still red.

Five minutes later he'd tried his card in every car, as well as the emergency doors, the ones pedestrians weren't supposed to use in case they got run over.

Nothing happened.

Seifer's temper, volatile as a pound of nitroglycerine, finally exploded. He threw his coffee mug against the doors in frustration as they remained closed and watched as the cup exploded into a cloud of white dust and fragments.

Without really thinking, he picked up one of the largest shards. Its curved shape fitted neatly into his palm. Coffee dripped down between his fingers.

_Damn. What the hell is he playing at?_

Seifer turned to leave.

His eyes fell on the car.

Squall's car.

Squall's shiny, …._expensive_ car.

Bastard.

He rotated the chunk of broken coffee mug in his hand, bent slightly and jabbed the edge into the nearest rear tyre. There was a hiss of escaping air. The car rocked slowly on its rear axle and sank down.

For good measure Seifer punctured the front tyre as well, and then made for the entrance with the happy, warm sensation of a job well done.

The doors slid shut in front of him.

He swiped his card. They still refused to open. With a nasty sense of déjà vu, Seifer turned to confront the person behind him, and then paused when he recognised the face.

_Damn. For a minute there I was half-expecting it to be Leonhart._

There was a last hiss of slowly escaping air from the corner. Squall's car subsided, slightly.

Seifer sighed.

He might as well face the facts. Vandalism just wasn't his thing. It didn't suit a person who would complete a particularly elaborate piece of graffiti by signing his name to it, and then for good measure leave his current address and phone number in case anybody wanted to compliment him on his fine work of art.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and regarded the riot police with a wary eye.

The SeeD who had pulled him up him yesterday for smoking stood in the shadowy confines of the garage, her hands on her hips. She wore a ragged boiler suit and some kind of goggles, her hair twisted up into a bun.

Seifer ran his card through the reader one last time, but wasn't surprised when the doors failed to open.

"Did you do that?" Deft asked him, accusingly. She pointed at Squall's car.

"Is there any point in saying 'no'?"

"No. Not really."

"Uh. Well. You know, if you're going to throw me out, Squall's probably back up in his office. If I leave now I might be able to catch him."

"You're not going anywhere."

Seifer muttered 'I _know_.' under his breath and asked "Why?"

"Because actions have consequences. You can change a tyre, can't you?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Because if you can't, this is going to take a lot longer."

There was nothing more to be said after that. She brought out a couple of spare tyres, a jack and a lug wrench, and Seifer got to work.

He was half way through changing the first tyre, jumping up and down on the end of a rusty tyre lever, when he realised that he was quite enjoying himself. By the time he replaced the hubcap on Squall's front wheel, he was thinking that he should have slashed all four.

He was examining the inner tube of the discarded tyre and congratulating himself on having done such a good and thorough job when Deft returned.

"I'll make you a deal."

"What sort of deal?"

"There's some stuff in the shop that needs fixing. You try that, and I'll fix the other tyre."

"Doesn't sound like much of a trade."

"Let me rephrase. Fix my equipment and I won't make you pay for the tyres."

"Make me."

"What did you think was going to happen?"

"I thought I wouldn't get caught." Seifer said, wryly

"You thought wrong, then." Deft said. She knelt down by the rear tyre and started to lever off the hubcap. "At the back, on the right, on top of the table. You can't miss it."

She pointed at a door that read: CAUTION, MECHANICS ONLY, in bold, grease-stained capitals.

Seifer went. It was against his personal code of honour to refrain from breaking a rule if there was one to be broken. Seeing as he sometimes thought as his personal honour code as 'rules' this was less of a life choice and more chaos theory.

He thought at first that the item lying on the table was a gun, but as he got closer he realised it was a gunblade. Part of a gunblade, anyway. The two screws that attached the sword half to the revolver had been removed, leaving what looked like an oddly shaped pistol.

Suddenly, Deft's request began to make a lot more sense.

He sat down at the table and began to examine the weapon, unimpressed with what he found. For starters, it wasn't even a good gunblade. Or it hadn't been. Definitely an ex-weapon.

The main problem with using a gunblade as a sword was the absence of a hilt. It meant that students training with one had to be careful how they placed their hands. And it meant that the delicate components of the revolver attachment were extremely vulnerable.

The gun in front of him was a case in point. It had all the hallmarks of a cheap teaching weapon, way too much wear for its age and a kind of blunted slickness to the components that came from dismantling the gun too many times. Even so, it would still have been a weapon, (but a highly inferior one) if, Seifer guessed, some cadet hadn't executed a clumsy parry and sent their opponent's blade biting down into the revolver part of the weapon. The cylinder had probably protected the cadet's hand, but it had definitely come off worst in the deal

He dissembled the weapon quickly, removing the cylinder and a few more of the more badly worn parts he thought could do with replacing. The actual work was out of his league.

Seifer was experienced in upgrading and adapting previously modelled weapons, but he'd never sat down with a pile of adamantine and lead piping and screws and tried to make something out of them. What was the point? Too much like hard work for his taste. The sharpest, most well-balanced, lightest sword in the world would still be no match for Hyperion in Seifer's eyes.

He finished separating parts and looked around for Deft, only to find that she was nowhere to be seen.

Seifer looked round the room. It wasn't large, and most of the space was occupied. He didn't understand much, but it felt like home all the same. It looked as if a plumber had broken into a mad alchemist's factory to battle a giant mechanical spider with limbs manufactured from car parts. There were tools and springs and gears and piles of small metal things that probably did something vital. Pieces of delicate hydraulic equipment shared shelf space with bottles of acid, dino bones and industrial sized tubs of WD40. Silvery ventilation hoses seemed to tie most of the objects together. Pieces of monster floated preserved in jars of formaldehyde.

There was even a small forge. And propped up against the forge were a few slender objects that looked strangely familiar.

He picked his way to them through a tangle of pipes and discarded grease-stained overalls.

They were swords, of course. But they were like no other swords he'd even seen before, in his life. Not even in Weapons Monthly, and they kept all kind of weird stuff.

Seifer picked the nearest weapon up by its unfinished hilt, the raw metal rough in his hand. He admired it for a moment. It wasn't exactly Hyperion, but it was a damn fine sword. Both sides of the blade were sharpened to a razor point, and the blade was concave, slightly flexible, but too light for his liking. Too light, yet beautifully patterned. Wavy mackerel dappling covered down the length of the blade, layer upon layer of finely folded metal.

"Damascene steel."

Seifer spun. "What?"

Deft stood in the middle of the room, each hand on the rim of a flat tyre. "It's a new technique from Centra. Not perfect yet, of course, but very strong."

Seifer tested the edge of the sword. "Too light."

"Heavy enough." She gave him a sharp-eyed glance. "You like swords?"

Seifer shrugged. He placed the blade down carefully amongst its fellows, then asked her "What's with the boiler suit? Why aren't you wearing that classman uniform?"

"Are you always this rude?"

_Hyne_, Seifer thought. What was the matter with female SeeDs? They must run it with the advertisements. _Cadets wanted: must supply own references, weapons, and stick up ass._

Deft continued. "We're not SeeDs, so we don't wear dress uniforms. Overalls tend to get the place dirty. Most of us spend some part of the week on-floor helping with maintenance, and the classman uniform's good, unisexual protective gear. Say what ever you like, you might be able to fight in a skirt, but just try fixing the treads back on an ATX-11 in one and you'll wish you hadn't."

She glanced casually at the two neat piles of components he'd left lying on the table and said "Come back when you want. We could do with a hand."

_I might, at that._ Seifer thought

"What did you say your name was, again?"

Her remark was the deal-breaker for Seifer. He was well aware that she knew perfectly well what his name was, or probably did. She must have known, to send him to look at that broken gunblade. Surely. Almost certainly. Unless she'd spent the last two years buried under a rock.

He tested the water. "I didn't. It's Seifer. Seifer Almasy." and watched, waiting, waiting for a reaction.

She just shrugged. "Fine. Come down whenever you're bored."

Seifer grinned, gave the swords a final, covetous glance and nodded

He left the machine shop and headed to Quistis's room with the feeling that maybe something, finally, was going his way.

Author Notes:

I found this discussion on a livejournal.

_… I demand more stories in which people have bad first sex._

_(For some strange reason, my urge to write a long series of tales in which people have extremely bad sex. So awful that they never want to see each other again. But it doesn't really satisfy anyone but me. No one expects their porn to include, "Can we stop? You're on my hair.")_

_This made me laugh, but it also made me think. Do I always leave out the not-so-nice parts about two people getting together?_

For me, the answer is, yes. For the record, I don't think anybody has a completely perfect sex life, but this is fanfiction, I'm certainly not being paid for it, and so I can please myself. Or my characters, as the case may be….

What the hell. I just enjoy writing smut.

Anyway, reviews:

Ardwynna Morrigu: the only thing with pulling things apart is that you have to fix them afterwards. And there's always one screw left over. God knows why.

Breaker-one: As far as finding out goes: it won't be that much longer….

Carllah: Thanks, I enjoy writing them.

Chocobo Surprise: God, I feel sorry for you. Ploughing your way through that much fic. I think the quote that you mention is an uh, 'adaptation' of one of Homer's beer fetish speeches. I'm really pleased that you think I write an excellent jackass. My main concern has been that I don't make him nasty enough.

Enkida: Yeah, I know, last story and all that, but after this I really can't see where I'd take the story that isn't just more of the same. Though I'm not leaving the FF8 fandom any time soon.

GhandiOwnsYou: Tadaaa! Rinoa….

Ghost140: ta again:D

Jack Hanek: You've got a good memory. Thanks for reading!

Nesza: Trolls are weird. I used to have some as a kid and was always really puzzled as to what all the fuss was about. They're ugly. Damn ugly.

Nynaeve77: Fuujin does blunt. I think it's her grudge against full sentences.

Quistis88: Only a slight cliffhanger, due to a refusal to tie things off neatly by substituting 'and then they had sex'.

Pod Sara: ta.

Seventhe: as for the mind-blowing succubus like sex, see above for explanation. Edea will play a key role in the story, just not quite yet.

Sulou: Ta. That bit kinda wrote itself.

Superviolist: Yeah, it went on for a bit long, didn't it? But 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' and all that stuff.


	6. Chapter Five: Ever Fallen In Love with s...

Recovering The Satellites.

You stirred my natural emotions

You made me feel unloved, and I'm hurt

And if I start a commotion

I'll only end up losing you, and that's worse

Ever fallen in love with someone

Ever fallen in love, in love with someone

Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?

Falling In Love-Pete Yorn/Thea Gilmore

Chapter Five: Ever Fallen In Love (with somebody you shouldn't have fallen in love with)

* * *

Selphie was happy. 

She sat in a canteen chair with her legs crossed in an impossible position, one boot resting neatly on each thigh. Beside her, Irvine slouched over the table and sulked over the loss of his favourite hat. Beside _him_, Xu read a paper with one hand and ate with the other.

Selphie leant forwards to heap another slice of meat on the impromptu egg, bacon and ketchup sandwich she was constructing. "Xu?"

"Mmm?" The SeeD didn't look up from her broadsheet.

"Anything new?"

Xu folded one page back, meticulously. "No. Odine's published another book."

"A book?" Selphie asked her. She settled Irvine's cowboy hat more firmly onto her head.

"Says here '_A History of the Daughters of Hyne_."

"Sorceresses." Selphie said grimly.

"Sorceresses. He should really leave that topic alone. Squall-"

"Yeah, I know. Said he'd throw him out the Ragnarok if he tried anything else with Rinoa."

Xu sighed. "Just another excuse to put our Commander in a foul mood."

"What next?" Selphie said rhetorically. She placed the final piece of bread on the top of her six-inch sandwich and admired her handiwork. The noise of SeeDs at mealtime filled the cafeteria around her.

"You could give me my hat back." Irvine said. He played with the end of his long ponytail, running strands of cinnamon hair between his calloused fingers. His loose hair was longer than hers. Selphie liked that.

She shook her head and pinned the flaps of Irvine's Stetson down over her ears in a bonnet. "Nu-uh."

"Uh- huh." Irvine said, and nodded.

"Nu-uh."

"Uh-"

"_Guys_." Xu snapped.

Irvine sighed. He snaked one hand out to grab his hat. Selphie slapped one hand on the crown of her head and fended him off with the other, giggling, until he gave up, muttering Galbadian curses under his breath.

Selphie tipped the hat-brim down over her eyes and smiled brightly. She'd stolen the Stetson as they sat down at the table for lunch, claiming that the summer sun freckled her nose. She was very pleased with her prize. It flopped comfortably on her head, butter-soft tanned leather greasy with use. Perfect for hiding a bad hair day.

Xu stared at the pair as if they were acting like two year olds. Selphie didn't care. She was having fun. It was _perfect_, having a whole hour for lunch with nothing better to do than eat and play games. Xu took everything so seriously. More seriously even than Quistis.

_And Quistis……_

_My three favourite things, food, Irvine and gossip_, she thought happily. The first was plentiful, the second was well-trained, and the third….

"You know, I swear Quistis's seeing someone?" she said, taking a large bite out of her ersatz sandwich.

"I don't think so." Xu said sceptically. She flicked over a newspaper page, underlining phrases cryptically with a stub of mechanical pencil.

"No, _really_. Well, you know how my room's right next to hers?

"I didn't think you spent much time in your room yourself."

Selphie reached over and gave Irvine's hand a squeeze. She beamed. "Anyway, Quistis was talking in the shower."

Xu didn't look up. "That's not that strange."

"In two different voices. _That's_ what's strange." Irvine put in.

"Did you hear any words?" Xu asked

Selphie shrugged. "Nah. Mind you, maybe it was just noises…"

Xu frowned. She looked like she was trying to work something out. "Selphie, Quistis's room is 7a, right? And yours is number eight…."

Selphie nodded and brushed crumbs from her yellow shorts. "Eight-b. So?"

"You're across the hall from her. Not next door. Don't tell me you could hear people talking from over the hall. Talking..or….whatever."

"The stethoscope was Irvine's idea." Selphie said, happily.

Xu set down her pencil, raised her eyebrows and looked at Selphie from over the top of her adamantoise-framed spectacles. "Selphie, _please_. Please don't tell me you had a stethoscope against Quistis's door trying to work out if she was …" She paused, then said, reluctantly, "Well….you know."

Selphie did. She wriggled in her seat and stabbed her fork in the air for extra emphasis. "It didn't work, anyway."

"And this is Quistis. I'm sure she'll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for it."

Selphie leaned forwards. "Such as?"

"I don't know. Maybe they were…..sharing body heat or something. Maybe there was some kind of medical emergency…Or maybe you were just imagining things."

"I was _not_ imagining things!"

"She wasn't imagining things" Irvine said, without opening his eyes. He'd leaned back in his chair, seemingly on a mission to become as horizontal as possible while still seated. His chin was on a level with the table top and his long legs jutted out under the free seat opposite.

"So how come you didn't stake the place out to catch whoever it was? If-and I'm not saying there was- there was ever anybody there in the first place."

Selphie blushed. "We got distracted." she said, exchanging a glance with Irvine. He grinned.

Xu gave them both a disgusted glare. "I'll bet you did. But she would have told me."

Selphie reached up and straightened the hat on her head. "No, because….because….because when we went to visit her in Trabia, she was dating then." She nodded vehemently, and took a second large bite of sandwich.

"We?" Irvine questioned.

"Me n' Rinoa. This summer. She _was_. I could tell."

"Maybe it was just a holiday romance" Xu said.

Selphie sprayed crumbs over the table. "Quistis? You must be kidding."

"So if we assume she was dating before, then she must be seeing the same person now."

"Why?"

"It's Quistis." Xu said, as if it was obvious. "That narrows it down a bit. Who had leave at the same time as she did?" She picked up a spare napkin and started to sketch a line diagram on the thin paper.

"I'll find out." Selphie said, determinedly.

Irvine's voice drifted sepulchurally from beneath the table. "Sunshine, I know this is a radical idea and all-but you could just ask her."

"It'd take all the fun out of it." Selphie agreed; "-but you do have a point."

"Thank you, ladies." Irvine pushed himself up in the chair, a complicated manoeuvre involving mainly elbows, and made a sudden grab for his hat.

Selphie evaded him easily. "Oh, she so is. I'll bet-" she said, and broke off as she saw a familiar figure enter the cafeteria. "Hey! Zell! Over here!" She waved one hand wildly above her head.

Zell waved in reply, loaded a plate with food, and sat down in the vacant chair next to Xu. Squall's PA nodded briefly at Zell, then looked at his plate. Her eyebrows climbed.

"Hotdogs? Again?"

Zell nodded. He regarded the five grease-stained cylinders on his plate lovingly. "'Course."

"Zell, don't know if you've heard, there are these things called _vitamins_…"

Selphie bounced in her chair, ecstatic with the chance to tell exciting gossip to a person who hadn't yet heard it. "Forget the food. It's not like you'll change his mind anyway. We've got much more important things to talk about."

Zell picked up the nearest hotdog and began inhaling it. He gave Selphie a look of mild alarm and asked her "What are you guys all wound up about?" around mouthfuls.

Selphie leant over the table. "Listen….We think Quistis is seeing somebody."

"A guy?" Zell, halfway through his first hotdog, reached for a glass of water. Irvine filled one and slid it across the table to him. Any normal person would have panicked, imagining the martial artist on the verge of choking, but the SeeDs had long since stopped bothering. Zell ate faster than most domestic animals, and seemed not to require oxygen in between bites.

Xu added a few more lines to her diagram. "Of course."

"A SeeD?"

Selphie finished off her own sandwich and licked her fingers. "That's what we think."

"Do you really need to tell him, sunshine?" Irvine said.

Selphie ignored him. "Well, I'm sure she had somebody in her room last night. Now-" she held up one finger, as if to forestall any comment "-with one thing and another we missed seeing him leave, but I'm sure I was right."

"So now these two're on some kind of detective mission"

"Irvine-"

"Why they can't just ask her-"

"Irvy!" Selphie said indignantly. "That wouldn't be _fun_."

Zell reached for a second hotdog. He sounded almost interested, and Selphie took that as a licence to continue. "So who is it? Nida? Cid? One of those Trepies?"

"We don't know."

"Maybe we've got some idea." Xu said. She added a last line to her diagram with a flourish and passed the napkin over the table to Selphie.

Selphie glanced at the diagram. She'd read no further than 'Quistis' before Zell neatly plucked it from her hands and used it to wipe his face.

"Zell!"

"Mmmph….what?"

"That could have been our breakthrough!"

"Mmmhy?"

"It was vital information!" Xu said indignantly.

Selphie ignored them both. "We don't know who yet. But we're going to find out."

"Yeah, because heaven forbid QT should have a private life!" Irvine snapped. He was usually patient with Selphie's more eccentric habits, such as flying stunts in the Ragnarok or refusing to wear anything but yellow because it made other people happy, but he'd never liked her collecting rumours about the love lives of half Garden.

Selphie interrupted indignantly. "She was dating somebody in Trabia. She didn't want to tell us, but there was a note, on her bed, and loads of flowers-"

"Flowers. Hyne help us all. _Flowers_."

"Ir-_vine_." Selphie said. She turned to talk to Zell, ostentatiously ignoring her boyfriend. "She can't hide. We'll force her to come out of the closet sooner or…"

"Mmmoset!"

Selphie feel silent, staring at Zell. The small martial artist had half a hotdog in each hand. He'd stopped chewing and his face was rapidly turning green. Selphie knew what _that_ meant.

Zell swallowed, stuttering a few words between chunks of sausage. "Closet -Oh, Hyne."

Irvine straightened up in his seat beside Selphie, suddenly alert. "Zell? You choking again?"

"That's wrong. So wrong. She can't- " Zell muttered, indistinctly. He coughed.

Xu put down her paper, watching Zell with interest, as if he was a biological specimen. "Is he choking again?" She adopted a loud, artificially slow voice." ZELL! CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

Zell didn't appear to notice her. He looked shell-shocked. "Hyne…"

"WAVE ONE HAND FOR 'YES', TWO FOR 'NO.'"

Selphie decided that this strange behaviour had gone on for long enough. They were all practiced at coping with Zell's little 'emergencies'. "Heimlich, Irvy."

"ARE YOU GOING TO DIE? WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO CALL AN AMBULANCE?"

Zell suddenly exploded into action. He slammed his half-hotdog back down onto the plate, jumped up out of his seat and kicked the chair out of the way. "Nah! Fine! Got to go!"

"What's the matter?" Xu said. She looked mildly alarmed, an indicator of Zell' obvious distress.

Selphie pointed at Zell's half-full plate. "Must be bad, Zell, you've left your…."

Zell dodged round Xu and took off at a dead run, evading classmen and students neatly. Selphie watched, open-mouthed, as he hurdled a table, sprinted through the cafeteria entrance, and disappeared from view. There was a sudden silence as a hundred SeeDs and cadets-in-training turned to watch him go. The conversation lulled, ebbed, and then resumed around them.

"But….your hotdogs." Selphie moaned.

Irvine reached over and took his hat from Selphie. "That means trouble." he remarked to nobody in particular. He slapped the Stetson back down onto his head and pulled it over his eyes.

Selphie folded her arms, keeping an eye on the doors for Zell's possible re-appearance. She picked up a hotdog from Zell's discarded tray and munched it thoughtfully. "You know, I think you're right."

* * *

Seifer sauntered along the corridors, thinking of nothing. 

He checked his watch, wondering if Quistis would have finished with her meeting yet. It was the one thing he'd saved from the recycler and the ex-knight often wondered why he'd bothered. The watch was nothing special, not even as good as the SeeD-issue chronometers handed out as presents at every student's fifteenth birthday. It smelt of mould and rubber. A long crack split its plastic face.

Seifer leant on the banister, staring down at the water. He ran one bare hand over the cool marble, missing his gloves The water glowed faintly beneath him, swimming-pool blue and artfully illuminated with stainless-steel light fittings.

He'd spent far longer in the garage than he'd thought. Longer than he'd meant to, certainly. It had been almost….-no, he corrected himself, it _had_ been fun. Nothing as good as battle, but practical. It might do.

_It might have to. At least, for a while._

He pulled a leaf from the nearest pot plant and idly shredded it, wondering if it was smokable.

_Nah, don't think so. Looks poisonous. And not in a fun way ._

Seifer dropped the leaf into the water and watched it float away. He turned, resting his elbows on the banister and slouched again the low wall which bordered the moat. He began to shred a second leaf. A couple of cadets walked past and scowled at him and his busy hands, as if it was illegal to mess up the plants. Seifer scowled right back.

_Hell, it probably _is_. Regulation 3067. Do Not Deface Ornamental Plants._

The leaf cracked, leaking sticky green sap all over his hands. Seifer dropped it on the floor, where it oozed over the expensive tiles. He ground it into a sticky mess with one boot (_Regulation 3304, Do Not Litter_)

_Bored.__ Water. Sunlight. Crappy unflammable trees. Stupid fucking students, and Zell.._

_Zell?_

Seifer looked up, checking first impressions. Yeah, it was Zell Dincht all right, stamping along the corridors as if he had a grudge against the floor.

_Looks pissed. Heh. _

The scowl on the small fighter's face gave Seifer a warm feeling inside. Anything which made Zell mad was all right by him.

_Better than all right. Damn near perfect._

He smiled to himself, noticing that the small SeeD's face was scarlet. It looked like he'd been choking.

_So nothing new there, then._

Zell, now. Dincht had always got on Seifer's nerves. He'd been a whiny kid, hanging round Leonhart like some kind of puppy dog.

Zell stormed closer. Seifer noticed crumbs on his clothes, and what looked like pieces of sausage. It looked as if he'd been interrupted eating, which Seifer knew was probably the cause of his bad mood. Zell loved his hotdogs.

Seifer racked his brains for something cutting to say as Zell stormed past, and then looked up in surprise as Dincht changed his course and headed straight for him.

"Almasy."

"What?"

Zell's hands hit Seifer mid-chest, pushing him off-balance. He staggered back against the plant pot, annoyed with himself for letting his guard down, even for a second. "Hyne's sake, Dincht. What the fuck do you want?"

Zell's jaw was set. A vein throbbed in his temple. "Is it true?"

Seifer frowned. "Is _what_ true?"

Zell opened his mouth and then shut it again. "_It_."

_What the fuck am I supposed to have done now? _Seifer thought, and then remembered the look in Rinoa's face as he left her standing there. Upset. Angry. Tearful.

Zell paused, perhaps irritated by his quarry's sudden silence and expression of vague and confused guilt. "You know."

Seifer scowled. He ran a hand through his hair, dislodging several twigs from his recent and unplanned trip into the pot plants. The shrub behind him was looking very much the worse for wear. It was probably expensive.

He kept his voice low and tried his best to be reasonable. "Look, I don't know what the fuck Rinoa told you, but-."

"Rinoa? You think this is about Rinoa?" Zell snapped. He bounced up and down slightly on the balls of his feet. If anything, his hair seemed to stand up straighter, like the comb of a small and pugnacious rooster.

"Isn't it?"

"This isn't about Rinoa." Zell hissed." It's about Quistis."

_Quistis?_

Seifer froze. A tiny voice in the back of his head yammered '_Didn't see that coming, did you?'_

Zell, his face scarlet, looked as if he was expecting some kind of response. It was unfortunate that his words had sent the organism which Seifer, for want of a better description, called his brain, on a vacation. The ex-knight wasn't sure where it had gone, but he hoped it was somewhere better than he was.

"Oh. That."

_Oh, gods. Quistis, fuck, how the hell does HE know?_

His response obviously wasn't what Zell had hoped for. "What do you mean, _that_?"

"Hyne. Quistis, me, us. That." Seifer said. He tried to think. His brain cells were slowly returning, one by one, carrying bottles of cheap tequila, pinatas and donkeys stuffed with straw.

"Yeah. That, asshole." Zell hissed. He moved closer, maybe trying to intimidate Seifer. It didn't work, for obvious reasons. Zell was an inch shorter than Quistis. Even plus hair, he only came up to Seifer's nose.

"Why the hell are you whispering, anyway?"

"Because I don't want to _ruin_ her reputation, Almasy."

The mention of him and Quistis in the same sentence might have put Seifer's brain on hold, but he understood aggression. That was something he could deal with. He grinned dangerously and leant back on the railing. "It's none of your damn-"

"I swear, if you hurt her, I'll kill you. I don't care how much of a hard-ass you think you are. I'll fucking kill you."

Seifer didn't doubt that Zell meant every word. It was unfortunate that he'd never taken him seriously at the best of times.

"Yeah? You and whose army? You're going to have to get backup for that, shortarse."

Zell just looked more determined. "If you hurt Quistis….."

"I'm not _going _to hurt her."

"Tell that to Rinoa and every other girl you fucked over."

"Fucked. Not fucked_ over. _And you know, they kind of enjoyed it….At least, I never got any complaints." Seifer snarled. He kept his own voice low, matching Zell's whisper.

Zell's incandescent face brightened by another two colour shades. He dropped back to get enough room for a really good glare. "Only because you never stayed around long enough afterwards!"

Seifer narrowed his eyes. "If you want a fight, you're damn well going to get one. And you better be ready for it."

He watched Zell carefully, trying to decide whether the martial artist would be willing to take it further. Zell certainly looked ready for a duel, right hand raised slightly above his left and his feet apart at a textbook angle. Seifer was willing to bet that his opening move would be Meteor Barrett. He could feel his own body shifting subtly into combat readiness. His hands balled into fists.

"I don't want a fight. This is a _warning_, Almasy."

Seifer rolled his eyes. He was amazed and slightly contemptuous that Zell might think he was dating Quistis just to get close enough to hurt her. Quistis was very good at defending herself, and Seifer wasn't that stupid.

_What's his plan-bitch at me 'till I promise to find Quistis unattractive?_

_Fat chance._

"I always thought you were an idiot. But this? You're fucking amazing. Dumber than a box of hammers. Defending Quistis's honour? You always have to fight for people who can look after themselves? She knows what she's doing." He thought for a moment. "Or who."

"If you hurt her…" Zell hissed venomously.

Seifer realised that enjoyable as his attitude was, it was unlikely to make Zell think he was taking Quistis, and their relationship, seriously. But then, that was Dincht's problem. Not Seifer's. He didn't have to prove anything to anybody.

"It's none of your fucking business who I screw."

"She's my _friend_."

"Thought she had standards." Seifer said.

"I'm beginning to think she doesn't"

"She's a big girl. I'm sure she can work it out for herself. She's smarter than most, you know."

Zell growled.

Seifer watched yellow wings unfurl in the fighter's eyes and unwisely pushed his luck. "You're just jealous 'cause she's so hot she has to wear flameproof underwear…"

Zell blushed. "I'm not _jealous_. I care about what happens to her because she's my _friend_. You wouldn't know anything about that."

"You don't know anything about me and her, and you don't know anything about what I've been doing for the last two years. So fuck off." Seifer snarled. He leaned closer to Zell, trying to intimidate him. It didn't work. Zell was way too worked up to even notice.

"Just leave Quistis alone!"

Seifer smirked. It was a good smirk, he knew. He'd practised it in the mirror. He leaned back on the railing and looked at Zell down his nose, holding the insolent grin.

"Seems to me the only person I don't have to leave alone is _you_."

Zell rose to his bait like a Fastitocatlon to fresh blood. "Anytime, Almasy. But if you hurt Quistis, I'll tear you to pieces."

"Right." Seifer said sarcastically. "You do that, Zell. Or get your friends to do it. That's the only way you fight your battles, isn't it? Fuck, even in the wars you never fought me alone. Too much of a chicken?"

Zell snarled, too angry to think through what Seifer was saying. "Bring it on."

Seifer grinned.

_Knew that'd do it._

In fact, he'd never fought any of the Balamb posse alone during the wars. Not Zell, not Selphie or Quistis, not Irvine. Just Squall. But the comment had served its purpose. Zell was mad, really mad. And Seifer had always been good at stirring up fights, and he was tired of talking.

Time for some blood.

Seifer pushed off from the railing and wondered what part of Zell to hit first. He steadied his breathing, centring himself, moving towards combat readiness…and then, to his surprise, he heard other voices.

"_Don't do it, Zell!"_

_"He's not worth it!"_

_"What's the fight about?"_ Seifer heard somebody else ask, quietly.

"_They say he's screwing Quistis…"_ This voice was gleefully malicious.

_"Zell?"_

_"No. Almasy." _

_"Quistis!__ No!"_

Seifer looked round just in time to watch several card-carrying members of the Quistis Trepe Fan Club being dragged away by helpful friends. It looked like they'd fainted in horror.

_Oh, shit._

They were both in the middle of a crowd of people, rapidly growing. There seemed to be several classmen on the periphery, but the crowd was wilfully blocking them, hungry for a fight.

Zell must have heard the remarks too, or at least registered Seifer's horrified expression. He turned and gave a wildly comical double take which would have made Seifer laugh in different circumstances.

_Shit. _

He hadn't thought anybody close enough to actually pick up on what they were saying.

_Was I shouting? Maybe. Zell was. It's all his damn fault. And this is going to crucify Quistis. Don't have a reputation left to lose, but fuck, she takes everything too damn personally._

Everything went very quiet.

_It's complicated_, Quistis had told him.

Zell's outburst had either made things very complicated, or extremely simple. Complicated enough to fracture the fragile ties of blood and sex and sheer coincidence that were their relationship so far?

Maybe.

It was time to make things very, very simple.

Seifer, frustrated, lashed out at the nearest target. "Ah, fuck, Dincht, thanks for that. Tell everyone. Hell, tell the whole damn Garden if you want to. If you're so worried about what people will think why in Hyne's tits'd you come and shout at me in public? Don't think those cadets on the third floor quite heard."

Zell opened his mouth, then shut it. Behind him, the crowd spread loosely to either side. The water rippled softly, blue-lit and tranquil.

"I didn't…."

"Just fucking shut up."

"Never meant for everyone to hear-"

_"Shut up_." Seifer snarled, and hit him.

As an opening move, it sucked. _Too slow_, Seifer thought even as he lunged, _too damn obvious._

And too _short_.

_Damn, I forget Dincht was, like, a midget. _Seifer thought, just as Zell dodged to one side and Seifer's fist glanced off his skull. The ex-knight swore vehemently and sucked his knuckles. He told himself that it was damn stupid to get into a fist-fight with someone whose favoured form of combat was bare-knuckle punching and then ignored his own advice.

He lashed out with one foot, metal toes and all. That blow landed, but Zell just kept coming. Dincht threw a punch of his own. That one landed. It was lucky for Seifer that the martial artist had to aim upwards, though he certainly didn't deserve the good fortune. The blow meant for his chin thudded into the bone of his cheek, all the weight of Zell's deceptively compact body behind it.

It hurt. He touched his face, feeling a line of bruising developing along one cheekbone.

_I can't believe the wuss actually found the guts to hit me_

_He's going to fucking pay for that._

Seifer retaliated again, and Zell feinted, attacked. Seifer tried his best to watch Zell's eyes, but as far as predicting his next moves went, he was up shit creek without a paddle.

_Forgotten all the boxing techniques I ever knew, and then some. Those wartime duels were a hell of a long time ago._

Dincht was fast, Seifer admitted grudgingly to himself, and then swore as Zell hit him again, in the ribs this time. He cursed and stumbled back into the railing. In the surrounding crowd, the cadets in charge of the junior students covered their ears.

_Hyne, I must look fucking stupid. It's like fighting air. It's like, hell, it's like fighting a midget with boxing gloves._

The truth was that Zell was just too quick for Seifer's rusty boxing skills, and they both knew it. Too small, too fast, too fucking _good_ to beat. The ex-knight had the advantage of height and weight, but first he had to connect, and so far he'd had zero luck with that. The only thing Seifer seemed to have much luck with was kicking Dincht as hard and as often as possible, and Zell wasn't even feeling it.

A couple more punches later, he decided he was being too nice and started aiming for Zell's groin. Zell, too fast, twisted away. Static electricity sparked from his fingers, sepia and grey stormclouds gathering like smoke in the space between the two fighters.

_Think I really did piss him off._

It was a massive understatement. If Zell had been a volcano, nearby villagers would have been searching for a handy sacrificial virgin.

Seifer watched Zell's eyes shatter like broken glass, yellow wings mantling in his mind. Static electricity crackled from his head and jumped from the spikes of his hair.

_Great_, he thought, and meant it.

It wasn't ideal-he didn't _want_ to be electrocuted- but if he pissed Zell off enough to make him summon, nobody could pin anything on him. Summoning was incredibly illegal within Balamb grounds.

_Hell, Zell shouldn't even have anything junctioned_, he thought.

Zell attacked.

Seifer dodged and gave him a hard shove between the shoulderblades, pushing him onto the hallway railing, trying to box the smaller, faster fighter in. It failed. Zell bounced off the banister in a move that shouldn't even have been possible. In a rapid reversal of roles, Seifer found himself with his back to the wall, boxed up against the railing.

The thunderbird's high scream rang in his ears. Zell had finally summoned.

Seifer stared up at the huge yellow hawk materialising above his head and suddenly remembered the sensation of being electrocuted. The air was lousy with magic, tense and dry. If he didn't do something fast, he was going to get fried.

He tried to think. _Fine, Dincht's summoned, but he's vulnerable. I can beat him. He's got no backup._

He watched Zell's silhouette shift and fade, half way through a series of intricate arm gestures as he waited for Quetzalcoatl to appear.

_One._

_Two._

Zell froze for a second, hands held up protectively in front of his face. The faint image of a green and yellow bird materialised and spun in the air, fringed wings cocooning its massive body.

Seifer lunged, thanking Hyne that Zell was so light. His left hand grasped the smaller fighter's shoulder, his right hand fought for a hold on his leg. He felt the wrenching ache of bruised post-duel muscles for a second as he lifted Zell bodily and dropped him over the hall railing.

The thunderbird blossomed as Zell fell, plummeting twenty feet headfirst into the water below. It spun, spread its winds in a glorious swoop, glared at Seifer with hawk's eyes…and then vanished as Zell hit the water and disappeared in a foamy splash.

There was a faint scream, and an electric noise like a bug zapper. Seifer grinned. He wasn't quite sure what happened when you mixed a thunder GF with water, but he hoped it was painful.

He turned away from the railing with the sweet satisfaction of a job well done. The air smelt of ozone and scorched fabric. A small wisp of smoke drifted up from the water to hover at eye-level, then vanished.

Seifer prodded his ribs experimentally and decided he was okay, more or less. He wondered vaguely if Zell could swim and then realised that he really didn't care. Dincht could look after himself. A chorus of catcalls and boos came from the crowd. Seifer turned to face them, grinned and bowed flamboyantly. He ignored the spread fingered salutes flashed up at him as the crowd began to split up.

The nearest classman reached him five seconds later. "Squall's office. Now."

Seifer groaned.

Bubbling noises came from the moat.

Seifer didn't look down. "You better get Dincht out of there. He might be drowning." He turned away without waiting for an answer. The nearest escape ladder was the other side of the Quad. Even if he could swim, Zell was going to be furious by the time he got out.

There might even be a rematch.

Whistling, Seifer turned to go upstairs.

Two of the classmen flanked him on his way to the lift. Their strange platelike hats were pulled down over their faces. Their voluminous robes brushed the floor.

They said nothing as Seifer waited for the elevator. Unlike the other students, it was impossible to tell what they were thinking, which was more creepy than reassuring. They could have been any age or sex under the heavy robes.

His gaze slid from the classmen to the lift doors, where he watched the reflection of the hall in the glass. The crowd had disappeared, harried by classmen who chivvied a few lazy hangers-on to their lessons or dorm rooms. An equally anonymous pair of classmen waited at the top of the moat's only safety ladder for Zell to climb out of the water.

Seifer calculated the distance from Zell's dive to the ladder. He added figures in his head, added a couple more minutes to allow for first degree burns and then counted down. He was a couple of seconds past zero when Zell emerged. The classmen grabbed him under the arms and yanked him up onto the floor, where he stood dripping and smoking slightly, his hair plastered flat to his head.

Seifer sniggered quietly to himself.

The lift doors slid open with a beep and a hydraulic hiss. Seifer followed his escort in, shouldered the nearest classman aside and stabbed the button with a finger. He examined his face in the glass critically as the lift rose upwards and decided he didn't look nearly enough hard-done by. It might be difficult to argue that he'd lost most of the fight, given that Zell was smoking and he wasn't.

_Pity._

He got out at the third-floor office. The classmen stayed behind. Seifer watched their stupid hats disappear out of the corner of his eye as the lift descended.

As it sank out of sight he made his way across the thick maroon carpet to Squall's office.

The huge doors were closed. Xu sat at her desk beside the main entrance, its columns and gilt scrolls dwarfing her tiny workstation. She filed her nails in an ironic kind of way, a sour expression on her face, and glanced up as he arrived.

"Yes?"

"I'm here to see Squall."

"Do you have an appointment?"

Seifer shrugged. He looked round at the lift, waiting for Zell to rise fuming from the lift shaft like an avenging demon.

Xu picked up a fat leather bound notepad and leafed through it. She frowned, reached for the computer mouse and checked something on the screen. "If you had an appointment you'd be in the book. I don't think you're in the book."

"Nope. He'll want to see me, though."

"Why, may I ask?" Xu snapped. She sounded even more annoyed with Seifer then usual.

"A fight. With Zell."

Xu sighed. She tapped a button on the laptop laid out in front of her, flicked the screen off with a gesture and glared at Seifer. "I told him that he shouldn't have let you back in."

"I told you it's a good job he doesn't listen to you." Seifer said nastily.

"Go in and wait. And for Hyne's sake don't touch anything. Most of the stuff in there is worth more than you."

Seifer grinned at her. He wondered what Xu would do to him when she found out that he'd been dating Quistis for a month and decided she'd probably gut him with a letter opener.

Xu stabbed a key with her finger. The ornate doors behind her hissed open. "Go in."

Seifer went.

The doors closed behind him with a crash. It would have made him jump if he hadn't been expecting it.

He looked around.

* * *

_There's no justice_, Xu thought glumly as the doors closed behind Seifer. She'd tried every argument she could think of to try and persuade Squall to get Almasy kicked out, but none of them had worked. And Seifer was looking so damn smug about something, as if he knew something she didn't. And she had to be at least semi-polite to him. 

Didn't mean she had to be _nice_ about it, though.

_Hyne, I hate him._

Xu had been sure she'd sent him away with enough irrelevant forms to keep him occupied for a week, if not two. Assuming he could read. It had been her favour to Quistis, magnanimous and uninvited, a gesture designed to keep the asshole off her friend's back. He had no business getting into fights and causing more trouble.

_At least he seems to be leaving Quistis alone now._

Xu smiled.

It had been her idea to reinstate her friend as instructor, and Squall had required very little persuading on that point. In fact, he'd required so little persuading that she was nearly convinced he'd had the scheme in his head right from the start. Quistis was a good instructor. Damn good, in fact. It was a pity that there had been only one instructor post vacant.

A real pity.

* * *

The room was empty. 

Squall didn't seem to be in residence, and Seifer, though he'd never have admitted it, was slightly glad.

He waited a few minutes and then began to examine the photographs decorating the walls. There was nothing else to do. Like the furnishings, most hadn't changed since Cid's tenure. The photographs were mainly group shots of old missions and long-graduated classes. There was one large picture of a puppy made out of cheese straws that looked like Rinoa's handiwork. Next the puppy was a large photograph. It was new.

Seifer frowned and moved towards it.

As he got closer he realised that it was actually two pictures, framed in a single card mount dyed in SeeD black and gold. One picture was faded sepia, the second large and printed on glossy paper. It showed Squall with his arm round Rinoa, flanked by Cid and Edea and surrounded by the rest of his friends. Selphie wore Irvine's cowboy hat and had one arm round his waist. Zell was trying to look serious with both arms crossed against his chest and hadn't noticed Selphie making a face over his shoulder. Quistis stood next to Edea, slightly apart from everybody else. She looked cool, confident and as beautiful as usual.

The other photograph was older and of much poorer quality, slightly blurred. It was just possible to make out the faces.

Edea hadn't changed at all.

She was surrounded by a similar group of children. Seifer touched the glass without caring if he marked it. To be honest, he didn't really think about it. Cleaning was something which happened to other people.

He traced his fingertip from face to face, matching the post-war victory portrait with the faces of fourteen years ago. Cid was obvious in his absence, as was Rinoa. Irvine perched on a rock, reddish hair cut short. Quistis sat crosslegged, buried up to her ankles in sand, Selphie next to her. Squall stared gravely at the camera.

Zell was the hardest to place, dressed the same as the rest of the group and minus one stupid haircut and one tattoo. Beside Zell sat a second untidy, blond-haired kid. Himself.

Quistis had once told him about the Garden posse's experiences in Time Compression. It had been only a few weeks ago, but it felt like years. He remembered her voice more than anything else, sleepy, with that oh-so-correct Balamb accent which made him feel like he was corrupting a convent schoolgirl.

How Squall had used Ultimecia's spell to return to their childhood and warn Matron. How Edea had recognised him and listened to what must have sounded like the biggest load of crap since Seifer sat his first SeeD exam.

Seifer was beginning to think that it might have been a good idea if he'd travelled back in time and shot himself quietly in the head. Somewhere along the line it might have been a good idea to tell Matron to forbid Dincht any tattoos. It didn't really matter, anyway. It was a moot point, anyway. Seifer certainly hadn't got any cute little kiddy flashbacks. The last thing he remembered was slicing Odin and his horse in two. Rather than the blood and stink he'd been expecting, the GF had dissolved silently in a shower of sparkles. After that there had been nothing except greyness

The first thing he remembered after Ultimecia's defeat was waking up knee deep in sheepshit somewhere in the Trabian sticks with a nasty feeling that something, somewhere, had gone horribly, terribly wrong.

Five minutes later, he'd worked out that it had been him.

Quistis had never told him about her own experiences.

He stared at the first picture again, trying to dredge up some memory of the photograph. Everybody looked about seven or eight, except Zell, who'd been short enough for six.

Wrapped in memories, Seifer almost didn't notice the door behind him open. As Dincht squelched in, flanked with two classmen, he wrenched his hand back from the photograph and tried to look nonchalant. It wasn't a skill that came easily to him, but he'd had precious little practice.

Zell pushed wet hair from his eyes and glared at Seifer. "Asshole"

Seifer made a great show of staring at the puddles dripping from Zell's clothes onto the tiled floor. "Jerk."

The nearest classman regarded them both with mute distaste from the shadows of his costume. "Quiet." He, or she, or it, pointed to the three chairs set in front of Squall's desk. "Sit. Wait here. The commander will be here soon."

Seifer walked over to the nearest chair. He dragged it back from the table, ignoring the screech of its rubber castors on the floor, and sat down.

Zell took the right-hand chair, prudently leaving an empty gap between him and Seifer.

The classmen adopted identical positions either side of the door, no doubt ensuring they didn't kill each other before Squall arrived.

Zell stared at the floor, hopelessly wringing water from his shirt with the scowl of someone with damp underwear. He had a split lip and touched it gingerly every so often like he couldn't quite work out how it had got there. Seifer couldn't help thinking that he must look just as bad.

He leant forwards and stared at his reflection in Squall's polished wooden desk. The veneer stained his tanned face dark mahogany, blanking out any bruises and throwing his pale hair and eyes up in contrast, almost skull like. He rested the palm of his hand on his chin and avoided Dincht's eyes.

Unusually, Zell was the first to break the silence. He glared at Seifer. "You electrocuted me!"

Seifer abandoned his restraint. Zell's comment was really fucking pointless. Besides, he'd electrocuted himself.

"Now you know how it feels."

Zell opened his mouth. Seifer thought about hitting him again.

_"Shut up."_

The door slammed open. Squall's voice was as icy as Quistis' at her worst, cold and soft like snow.

Zell jumped. Seifer scowled. The classmen filed out as Squall stalked in, a slim monochrome silhouette against the glittering glass of the office furnishings. He paced the length of the room to reach the desk, his boots clicking on the tiled floor, then slid the leather chair out from underneath it and sat down. His face was smooth and controlled, but something about his body language conveyed barely leashed anger.

"Someone tell me just what is going on."

It wasn't a question.

Seifer himself had one hell of a temper but Squall's fury had always been so hot it burned cold. He found anger easier to deal with than Squall's silence. Take Zell, for instance. He understood that.

He'd never understand Leonhart.

Seifer made the first move. "Tell him to keep his fucking nose out of my business."

Zell bristled. "One word from me and you'll be stuck in prison for the rest of your life."

Seifer sneered. "One punch from me and you'll be spending the rest of your life sucking your meals through a straw." He appealed to Squall "I haven't broken any rules."

_At least, not any you know about. Not unless they've installed some new CCTV cameras in the last couple of years, anyway. _

Zell interrupted. "What about regulation 69? Non consensual sexual activity."

"It wasn't non-consensual! Unlike some people, I'm not that despera-"

"I think you'll find that rule 69 is the one about not having inappropriate sexual relations with inanimate objects." Squall said blandly.

If Seifer had stopped to think about things he might have realised that it was the calm before the storm.

He didn't.

"Yeah, Dincht, have you told him about you and your right hand?"

"Screw you. I want a rematch."

"Any time. All that'll be left of you is a pair of gloves and a _stain_, chicken-wuss."

If Squall's tone had been frosty before, now it was well below zero and dropping fast. He never raised his voice once. He didn't have to. "That's _enough_. What the hell do you think you're playing at? You're both behaving like eighteen year-olds." He turned to Seifer "And you…"

Zell smirked slightly. He ran a hand through his limp hair, trying to revive it. He did not succeed. His hairstyle looked like dirty blond string. Water dripped from the ends and soaked into his already damp T shirt.

Squall raised one eyebrow. "Zell. You're wet. Why?"

Seifer smirked "I….."

"I asked _him_."

Seifer shut up.

"Somebody.." Zell scowled at Seifer, who gave him his best and most annoying smile, "threw me into the moat."

Squall didn't look surprised. "Who started the fight?"

There was a moment of silence. Both accused parties pointed at each other.

Squall sighed. "Okay. I'm going to answer some questions. You're going to answer them. One at a time. Without interrupting. If possible using words of no more than one syllable."

He pointed a black-gloved finger at Zell. "Why?"

Zell tapped both feet on the floor, restlessly.

The noise annoyed Seifer. It puzzled him. There were so many other things about Zell which annoyed him, it seemed almost irrelevant. He leant back in the chair, scowled at Zell's feet and noticed something.

The office chairs were standard Garden-issue classroom furniture. Seifer was slumped out, feet almost touching the base of Squall's desk to convey the maximum amount of disregard for authority with the minimum amount of effort. Zell's toes barely touched the floor.

_Hyne, he really is a shortarse._

Zell glanced down, searching for words, and realised that Seifer was mentally snickering at his height. He gave Seifer a black look and settled into a cross-legged pose which looked acutely uncomfortable.

Squall sighed again. "What were you doing? In five words or less."

Zell rested one red leather glove on his jaw. He counted off each word by folding one finger into his palm so that every pause was punctuated by a creak of leather. "He's. Sleeping. With. Quistis. " He looked down at the last free finger, glanced at Seifer, growled 'Asshole' and then folded his hand into a fist.

Seifer had the pleasure of seeing Squall's expression completely blank out and wondered if it was a skill which was easily learned. If Leonhart ever quit the SeeD business he could make millions as a professional poker player.

A tiny muscle in Squall's jaw clenched and then relaxed. He closed his eyes.

"Is this true?"

"Dincht's got no right poking his hair into my personal li-"

"_Yes or no_."

Seifer sighed, and, not for the last time, wished he had a cigarette. "Yes."

There was a pause. Seifer looked at Zell. Zell looked vindicated. Squall didn't look anything.

The Commander spoke. "Zell, you're ruining the carpet. Go get changed."

Zell looked wounded. "But…"

"Come back here in half an hour. No. Make it forty five minutes."

Seifer narrowed his eyes, trying to work out exactly what Leonhart was going to do to him in forty-five minutes.

_Same as in five, only longer.__ And more often._

"And, on the way, go find Quistis. Tell her I want to talk to her." Squall said. He shuffled papers on his desk, gave a photograph of Rinoa with a tiny smile and straightened the frame imperceptibly.

"What shall I tell her?"

"The truth." Squall didn't take his eyes from his paperwork.

Zell frowned. "What, that you're annoyed at her for dating hi-"

"No."

"That you're concerned about her personal life?"

"No."

Zell looked puzzled. "That you thought she had better taste in men?"

"No, Zell. Tell her that you were shouting out details of her private life in front of a hundred SeeD cadets half an hour ago. And that I would like to discuss those details with her." He glanced at Seifer. "That you were _both_ broadcasting her personal affairs."

It would be hard to tell who looked most terrified at Squall's comment, Seifer or Zell. Seifer hid his expression of dread under a lazy yawn.

Zell opened his mouth and then shut it again. He ran one hand through his still-wet hair and winced as it dribbled cold water onto his T shirt. His gloves were soaked, the leather probably ruined. He said "Do I have to?" piteously.

"Yes. What time is it?"

Zell glanced at his watch, which, fortunately for both of them, was waterproof. "Fourteen hundred hours. Three minutes. And…" he narrowed his eyes "twenty seven seconds...oh, wait, 29 now.."

"Forget the seconds, Zell. Tell Quistis I want to see her at fifteen hundred hours. And tell her why. I'll see you after that. Just come up with her, then wait." Squall's face was as unreadable as any mask. "SeeD Dincht, you're dismissed."

Zell saluted in response, unfolded his legs from the chair and got up, leaving a small damp patch on the seat. He gave a second salute and squelched over to the door, trying to catch the drips that cascaded from his clothing with gloved hands.

The classmen opened the door for him, gave Squall a glance and then closed it again. Just before the door slammed shut, Seifer caught a glimpse of the smallest classman skidding over on one of the puddles of water left from Zell's rather abrupt exit. It recovered, gathered what remained of its dignity and left.

The doors shut with an ominous click.

Seifer leant back in his chair, wearing a mutinous expression that didn't go well with his borrowed Garden casuals. He waited for the shouting to start.

It didn't.

He waited.

Squall didn't look up at him. He shuffled some paper, aligning each sheet neatly with the edge of the desk. Task completed to his satisfaction, he reached for the matt black pencil case lying on the desktop beside the paper and retrieved three blunt pencil blanks.

Seifer watched with mounting irritation as Squall slowly fed each pencil into the desktop sharpener, whittling each blank to a two-inch long stub with a point like a razor.

_Whirrr_

_Click._

_Whirrr_

_Click_

_Whirr_

_Click_.

Squall removed the last pencil from the sharpener and set all three neatly down on the desk beside the paper. He brushed wood shavings from his gloves and wiped them off meticulously over the rubbish bin.

Seifer fidgeted in his chair. He didn't like being ignored. He wasn't used to it. And he was beginning to imagine at least ten inventive and painful uses for sharpened pencils.

Squall finished cleaning his hands. He settled back into his chair, ignoring Seifer, and laced his fingers together. He cracked each knuckle in turn and brushed imaginary specks of dust from the fine leather.

Seifer fumed as Garden's commander pulled out a desk drawer and delved deeply into its contents. He glared at Leonhart's shaggy dark head, craned over the drawer like he had nothing important to do and looked round, mentally listing all the impromptu weaponry in the room. The list started with the chair he was sitting on and moving up to larger and less easily movable objects.

He squinted at the topmost letter on Squall's desk, a scrawled messy thing with an Esthar postmark, and tried to read the writing upside down. He failed, but by looking at the script, he would have been hard pressed if it had been right way up.

Squall smiled slightly and extracted a brown cardboard box from his desk drawer. He upended the box and sent its contents sprawling over the desk.

A whole box of pencil blanks.

Seifer sighed and kicked the desk, his boots denting the wooden panelling. "What the fuck, Leonhart. So I'm sleeping with her. It's not a crime."

Squall left the first blunt pencil in his desktop sharpener. He crossed his arms on the desk and met Seifer's eyes for the first time with a gaze as penetrating as a drill bit. "How long?"

Seifer shrugged. "Since her holiday." He didn't bother to say '_when you still thought I was dead_' because Squall had almost certainly worked this out already. "But it's not your business."

"It is."

"Why?"

"It _is_ my business. It's my business to look after every part of the Garden. And if one of the SeeDs isn't working well then it's my business to correct the problem."

"She's working fine."

"Yes?" Squall said with a trace of irony. "So well that her last mission was a political disaster and she didn't tell the Garden you were not in fact deceased."

Seifer scowled. "She thought I was dead."

"I'd quite like to know how you managed that. I have testimonies from both Balamb and Galbadian forces that they saw your dead body."

"It wasn't mine. It was..someone else's. It's a long story. I'll explain it to you some time. It wasn't meant to happen. Made life easier for me, though, so I thought I'd keep on with it."

"So why did you come back?"

" Sent her a letter. She saved my ass. I thought she deserved it. Then you sent her on holiday. Guess she planned to think about it then, get things sorted. And we kind of met." Seifer said. He realised that he was talking more than he'd meant to. Squall was like that, little razor-edged questions followed by long silences you fell over yourself to fill.

Squall said nothing.

"Think you know about the rest."

Silence. Deathly, immobile silence.

"So we're fucking. Maybe we're in love. Or perhaps I'm in love and she just likes me. Maybe it's the other way round. Or maybe it's just that the sex is good. Hyne knows I don't. I don't know what the hell we're doing. But that's why the fight."

Squall didn't move. Seifer had seen more life in ventriloquists' dummies. His eyes were level grey and there was some kind of thought process going on behind them, something with little gears and pedals and dials. Something much more constructed than Seifer ever bothered with.

He decided to keep talking, keep the process going. Sooner or later, if he shut up, Squall would come to a conclusion. He wasn't sure it was one he'd like.

"Zell..saw something. Something he could use to figure it out, but he didn't say anything at the time. Hyne knows why he waited this long. I was in the hall and that asshole ran up and shot his mouth off in front of everyone. I told her we should have said something earlier, but hell, never seemed like the right time before. And the longer it went, the harder it was to say something, cause then we'd have had to explain why we kept it quiet from everyone." He looked thoughtful. "Looks bad, I know, but we never planned this. Never planned any of it."

"Nobody else knew?"

"They do now." Seifer said grimly. "Half the fucking Garden. Quistis wanted to wait till things had settled down a bit, break it gradually." He sighed. "She's going to lose it."

Squall nodded. He looked like he'd run out of questions to ask. He said nothing, but Seifer would have bet that not only could he have repeated everything he'd just heard, but could have probably provided some pointers on body language, tone of voice and attitude, as well. Hell, Squall probably knew more about what Seifer was saying than _he _did.

"I'm inclined to view this news in a positive light. Stabilisation, if it works. I hear you might be helping out the engineers?" He raised one eyebrow.

Seifer nodded, trying to work out how exactly Squall knew he'd been anywhere near the garage, and then remembered he had a bone to pick. "Was that why you wanted me to go to the garage? Did you plan it?"

Squall looked bemused, or as bemused as he could look with that poker face. "The garage?"

"Regulation 135, remember?"

"I never told you that."

Seifer shook his head. "That's what it sounded like." He paused, then added. "That's what you get for being so damn cryptic."

Squall reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a dented and well-used copy of the SeeD manual. He hunted through it, frowning slightly. "Regulation 35. Not Regulation 135."

"So 135's the one about the cars?"

Squall nodded. He rifled through a few more pages, pulled out a green highlighter from a matte-silver pencil case and underlined a paragraph. He passed the book to Seifer.

Seifer scowled. The book spilled heavy in his hands, the spine long-broken by overuse. The cheap ink ran slightly under the layer of highlighter, but he could still read the writing.

_Regulation 35.__ Family visits are encouraged. Please apply in writing to the junior representative, or to your senior officer. One visit per term only, though permits may be granted for additional visits or extended leave by special dispensation._

It didn't make any sense at first, but after a few seconds Seifer began to understand the obvious connotations of _family._ "This is the Edea thing, yeah?"

Squall nodded.

"Why'd you want me to do that, anyway?" Seifer snapped. He was torn, pleased that they'd finally got off the topic of his-less-than-perfect love life, but annoyed that Squall had managed to turn the conversation to the one other subject he really didn't want to talk about.

Squall just looked at him. Down at the book, then up at him again, as if Seifer should know. It made Seifer feel very stupid, and understandably angry.

"Hynessake, why didn't you just ask me instead of trying all that cryptic shit?"

"So you'll do it?"

"No."

"Why?" Only Squall could make a simple interrogative sound into an order to confess your sins.

"I told you, she doesn't need me. Sounds like she's fucked up enough." Seifer stared out of the window behind Squall's head, at the Balamb plains and the purple mountains behind them. He expected Squall to drop the topic, but he didn't.

"I don't think this is about her. I think it's about you."

Seifer lost his temper for the second time that morning. "What the fuck are you trying to say, Leonhart?"

"She's got post-traumatic stress disorder."

"What? It's been two years! That shit can't last two years. Can it?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Squall said blandly.

"Fuck you, Squall." Seifer snapped. He felt slightly guilty, deep inside, and hated Leonhart for forcing him to remember. Because he was right. At the end of the day, deep down, he didn't want to visit Edea because he was scared.

Simple.

The thing which made it even worse was that he wasn't quite sure what he was scared of. He knew she wasn't Ultimecia any more, but equally, he knew that he didn't have any idea of what had been done to them both. And he knew he was being damn selfish, but fuck, could he help that? No.

"Just shut up and listen." Squall snapped. "She's a mess. And I mean a mess. Cid spends most of his spare time down in Centra, and we visit, but it comes and goes. For some reason, it always gets worse when there's nobody there. She can't sleep. She has strange dreams. She avoids even mentioning the wars, even in unrelated conversations. She –"

"So how in hell am I supposed to make a difference?"

"No..LISTEN, Almasy. She has weird flashbacks, says it's like re-experiencing the wars. Like having somebody else inside her head."

Seifer fought down a sense of growing unease. "What about medically? Is she okay? No-" he wheeled one finger round in the general direction of his temple –"head trauma? Anything like that?"

Squall looked exasperated. He seemed to have forgotten the book laid in front of him, spine-spread and broken. "We tried. Kadowaki says she's fine. But she said _you're_ fine. And I don't believe-"

"Hang on a minute." Seifer said carefully. "You think I'm fucked up, and you STILL want me to go fix her?"

Squall nodded.

"How the hell does that work?"

"I'm just hoping it will. Believe me, we've tried everything we can think of." Squall didn't look up. It felt like he didn't want to ask a favour of Seifer, which confused him, because Squall was doing him a fucking favour just letting him breathe.

Seifer rested an elbow on the arm of his chair. He rubbed his free hand against his face. "So that's why you let me back in."

Squall paused a second, then nodded again.

"If I don't go, will you kick me out?"

Squall shrugged. "We'll wait. Wait, and hope you become useful in some other way, because quite frankly, Almasy, you haven't exactly been an asset in the last few days. Maybe you'll decide to see her of your own accord."

"Maybe I won't."

Squall retrieved the SeeD manual carefully, handling the battered book with a care that belied its condition. He placed it carefully back into a drawer. "That too. But I believe we started out discussing something quite different. I'd like to continue that conversation."

"Quistis."

Squall nodded. "Quistis."

Seifer leant his elbows on the desk. He scowled. "I won't stop seeing her just 'cause you tell me to."

"Oh, I know that. But Quistis would."

"Yeah." Seifer said reluctantly. "She would." He leaned further forwards and glared at Squall "That better not be a threat."

"It's a fact. But no, I won't order her away from you. For the record, I don't think it's a good idea, but I'm going to make a command decision just to leave it alone. Let things sink or swim of their own accord."

"Hyne, that's generous of you, Commander. "Seifer said, sarcastically.

Squall ignored him. "Be discreet, is all. And expect talk. You've got a bad reputation for a good reason. It'd be strange if people weren't worried about her, even without all the…baggage."

Seifer preened at the mention of _reputation_. "But you're not."

"Quistis can look after herself." Squall smiled, slightly. "One other thing. I'm going to assign you some classes. Most of the time you'll be helping out the mechanics, if they'll have you. As for the rest, I've got a couple of other teachers in mind. Things you might benefit from."

"What?" Seifer didn't like the sound of this.

"I'll send the schedule down tomorrow. What with that and Quistis's new assignment, there won't be much time to cause trouble. For either of you." He checked his watch. "It's nearly three p.m. I haven't assigned you anything to do today, so just return to your quarters and rest. Try and finish up that paperwork. And yes, that's an order."

It seemed as if the interview was at an end.

Seifer got up from the chair and turned to leave. He got half way across the floor before a thought stuck him.

"You mind telling me what classes you've assigned Quistis?"

Squall told him.

Seifer laughed all the way back to his room.

* * *

Squall watched the door close behind Seifer and sighed. He tidied his desk automatically, replacing pencils and reams of paper into drawers that were fast overflowing. He left the SeeD manual in the middle of his desk, neatly aligned. 

It always amazed Squall how people always assumed he had some kind of plan. He'd learnt to fake a decent aura of authority, but it always puzzled him as to where exactly everybody thought he'd found the time to gain the experience. Mostly, like today, he just made it up as he went along and so far, things seemed to be working out.

His strategy had been helped by the fact that questioning everything was not a good idea for soldiers, because those who stopped to ask "Why" when somebody else shouted "Duck!" weren't soldiers for long, Not asking questions was a valuable survival trait. But there was always a first time.

He'd lied to Seifer, but he didn't think the other man had noticed. Edea's erratic state of mind was a weight on Squall's conscience, but Squall had another small, selfish reason for wanting her back at Balamb, and in one piece.

Just one.

He certainly didn't feel guilty about it. If all it took to reach his objective was one small lie he'd done worse, for Garden. Much worse.

It had taken Squall the best part of two years to learn how to manipulate people in small and subtle ways. The trick was to see the Garden and its inhabitants as some kind of greater whole, some kind of plan. There was always another crisis, no matter how hard the SeeDs fought.

He was interrupted by a tinny buzz. "Sir, Quistis and Zell are here. Shall I send them in?"

Squall tapped a button on his desk. "Just Quistis. Zell can wait."

"Sir." Xu said, and disengaged the comlink.

Squall used the few seconds until the door swung open to straighten his uniform, finish tidying his desk. He brushed dust from the cover of the manual. Quistis understood the value of tidiness. He didn't particularly want to disappoint her.

His poker face slid into place automatically as she stepped through the door. "Come in."

He could tell before Quistis got ten metres away that Zell had told her. Her face was cool and composed and completely blank. He'd seen more emotion in the face of a GF . Come to that, he'd seen more emotion when he looked in the mirror.

It was as if she'd walled herself off again, coating her every emotion with a thin layer of ice.

Squall frowned.

He gestured at the empty chairs in front of him. Quistis took her time settling down in one. Unconsciously, she chose Seifer's vacated seat, the one on the left. It might or might not have had something to do with the fact that Zell had dripped all over both right and central seats.

Quistis fiddled with the SeeD pin on her jacket, tugging at it. The clasp refused to loosen so she pulled it off, ripping a small triangle of peach cloth from her vest. She tossed the badge blindly onto the desk. Squall's eyes followed it as it bounced once, twice, three times, and came to a rest next to his framed picture of Rinoa. He looked up with a question framed in his eyes.

Quistis's face turned even whiter.

"I resign."

* * *

No author notes today. Damn finals. Zzzz. Instead, a small song which I was going to use for the previous chapter but decided not to because I decided it was too Third Reich. It contains two of my favourite things-metaphor and innuendo. 

"Now if some blond and blue eyed boy

Should care to teach me strength through joy

And see that all my liberal tendencies are cured.

If it should be decreed by Fate

That you invade my neighbouring state

You shall find my frontiers open, rest assured."

V for Vendetta-Alan Moore

Heh.

Reviews: Thanks so much guys! So many! I am spoiled.

Altol: Wow, uh, high praise. Glad to have you back:D, and F&I, as always, rocks.

Breaker-one: I really don't see what the problem is with Rinoa.Okay, she's a bit ditzy, but she isn't THAT bad.

Cyberwing: see, new chapter! I live to serve…

GhandiOwnsYou: well, it's not _exactly_ gunblade forging…Wait for the next ch.

Ghost140: Well, 'ta' is kind of a common expression where I was brought up.

Jack Hanek: I had a discussion with my beta on that. I think the gist is, if Seifer's around her without dumping constant criticism and putdowns upon her head every five minutes, never mind peeling her clothes off, this means he likes her. Lots.

Kjata: nice rhymes, though. Kind of like a haiku.

Melete: Sex is just one of those things, if you're not involved in it, it's kind of stupid. Porn pisses me off a lot. Where's the stubble rash? Or the wet spots? Or the snoring?

Nezsa: Some more stuff about Deft and Seifer's 'new job; will be explained in the next ch.

Nynaeve77: I think not realising that two people got it on can be quite hard, _if you're not expecting it._

Seatbelts: She wasn't thrown, she jumped. Wait and see. Odine's gift will have repercussions.

Seventhe; Sorceresses are indeed really cool. Apart from Rinoa's limit break, which actually turned out to be kinda lame and disappointing. Though pretty.

Sheep the adventurer: I love Zell.I love writing Zell. He just..goes. And his hair's like, his defining characteristic. It's so easy to take the piss out of.

SicknessIn Salvation: That's really interesting and just goes to show that such a small error in translation can give you a different take on things. I personally, think that they had a Thing, but it was all over by the game.

Superviolist: It's not, Uh, so not.

ThistleDemon: If you like my writing style, go read Terry Pratchett novels.You will LOVE. And, you know, pick up on all those stolen quotes.


	7. Chapter Six: A Model Major General

Recovering The Satellites

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,

From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;

I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

'The Pirates Of Penzance' -Gilbert And Sullivan

* * *

Chapter Six: A Model Major General.

"I resign." said Quistis.

Squall stayed silent. He certainly didn't look surprised. In fact, Quistis decided, he did not look surprised in the least. It was as if he'd expected her.

She tried again. "I _resign._"

Still no response.

Quistis began to feel rather foolish. She blinked. The room around her was too bright, evening sunbeams shafting through arrangements of shades and blinds to turn the glass-walled office into a prism. Light shafts illuminated the strip of red carpet with its untidy arrangement of chairs, glinted on the frames of photographs and gleamed on the enamelled surface of Quistis's instructor badge, which lay on Squall's desk.

Quistis caught sight of the tiny glare out of the corner of her eye and sighed quietly. A few seconds ago it had seemed like such a good idea to rip her badge off and throw it onto Squall's desk. After a minute of Squall's best stare, her gesture didn't seem so clever. Melodramatic, maybe, self-indulgent, certainly, but not smart. Not exactly typical of her thought processes.

_Hyne, Seifer's obviously having a bad influence on me…._

She folded her hands miserably and tried to ignore the prickle of sweat in the roots of her hair.

Squall was still looking at her, as if he was expecting something. Quistis folded herself back into her chair, her hands clasped so tightly the pad of each finger dug into the skin between her knuckles. She fixed her line of sight thirty centimetres from Squall's left ear and cast her mind back ten minutes, blinking as the last rays of the setting sun scored her glasses.

* * *

_Ten minutes previously, second floor classroom…_

"How well did I do?"

The SeeD in charge smiled at Quistis in a way which she probably meant to be reassuring. "You did well. Very well, in fact."

Quistis smiled politely. She had never had any problems with passing exams. Real life, she'd learned, was much harder. "I've got a new assignment?"

"Yes. It's not exactly what you're used to, mind, but we had very few vacancies. Just bear in mind that it's temporary. I'm sure you'll be found something more suitable in a few months." the SeeD said. She held out a shield-shaped pin badge and a long white envelope, both embossed with the Balamb logo. Quistis took it, frowning slightly at the mention of _temporary_ and _more suitable_. She'd been secretly hoping for some advanced classes, something to test her skills.

"What do you mean, _more suit_-"

They were interrupted by a reluctant knock at the door. It was almost too quiet to be a knock, the surreptitious sound of somebody hoping that no one would hear him.

"Enter." the SeeD called out.

Quistis could have sworn she heard a groan from behind the heavy classroom door. She put the letter down, expecting a lost, maybe slightly bashful first year student. She was only partly right.

"SeeD Dincht?" the examiner said in surprise.

Quistis raised one eyebrow as Zell sidled into the room. He looked rumpled, as if his clothes had dried while he was wearing them. His jacket shoulders, usually neatly starched to display his sergeant's patches, slumped as if he had a Ruby Dragon pulling on each coat sleeve. The tips of his shaggy bleached hair were brown and singed.

"Zell?"

Zell looked at his feet. He spoke to the room in general, his words an indistinguishable mumble. "Squall wants to see you, QT. I've got to get you. To take you to his office. Uh, now."

Quistis tucked the white envelope into her belt. She pinned the badge to her lapel. "Now?"

"Y'ss."

"Do you need me to stay longer?" Quistis asked the SeeD supervisor. She'd been hoping to discuss her new assignment, talk over some lesson plans, but if Squall really needed to talk to her then plans and preparation would just have to wait.

"We're all done here, Instructor. Congratulations. Your lessons start tomorrow."

Zell bounced nervously on the balls of his feet. He looked utterly miserable. "Quistis, come _on._.."

"I sent you some copies of last year's class texts in the internal mail. Just as long as you cover everything on the curriculum, you can teach what and how you like."

"But surely-"

"Quistis! I'm already late-"

"Yes. Okay." Quistis said without conviction. "I'm almost sure I'll be fine-"

Zell nodded at the other SeeD, threw a sloppy salute and virtually dragged Quistis from the classroom. Instead of taking her straight to Squall's office, or leaving her to find her own way, he stopped at the next empty classroom and dragged Quistis inside.

Quistis looked at her watch. "I thought you said Squall wants to see me?"

"Does." Zell said, reluctantly."…only.."

Quistis firmly detached Zell's hand from her sleeve. He looked almost lost, standing slumped against a table with his arms folded across his chest. He stared at the floor. Quistis checked her watch impatiently and then began to tap her feet, one at a time and then both together. Zell didn't appear to notice. "Only? Only what?"

No answer. It was like talking to Squall, Quistis thought grimly. "You said we needed to get to the meeting?"

"Only there's something I've gotta tell you first." Zell said. He shrugged unhappily and looked up at her. His face was bright red and parts of his eyebrows had vanished, giving him a strong resemblance to a worried tomato.

"Are we having a problem with the Bombs in the Training Centre again? I heard a first year student got set on fire last week."

"Nope."

Quistis's mind jumped to the most obvious conclusion. "Is everyone _okay_?"

Zell nodded.

"What in Hyne's name is this _about_, then?"

Zell told her.

He told her that events had taken a not entirely unexpected turn for the worse. He told her why, and how, and who had been watching. He told her that she was expected right now in Squall's office, and had, in fact, been expected there for ten minutes because it had taken himself, Zell Dincht, nearly an hour to pluck up the courage to come and get her. He told her she must have been mad and asked her if she had had a mental health examination recently.

Quistis ignored him. Beyond her ice-cool exterior and an inner core of pure panic she knew exactly what she had to do. The brand-new pin badge burned on her lapel, a simple enamelled circle in Balamb's black, white and blue.

She left Zell in the empty classroom without a second glance.

* * *

Quistis sighed for the third time that morning.

Squall said nothing. He flicked through some sheets of paper.

Quistis waited. After a few more seconds she returned her gaze to Squall's ear, choosing the right ear, for variety's sake. He had quite nice ears, she decided. She wondered how long it would take her to pack all of her things. Not long, probably. She didn't own much.

_It must be a record. My own personal worst. Quistis Trepe, latest promotion: Instructor, second class. Term of residence, ten minutes and…oh, about forty-seven seconds..._

She watched as Squall picked her badge up and turned it over. He put it back on top of his polished walnut desk and then placed one finger on top of it and slid it back towards her, eyes framing a question.

Quistis pushed her spectacles up with her hand. She reached across the desk and slid the badge back to Squall, watching his face as she did so.

Squall's expression wasn't judging. It wasn't anything. There was no hint of condemnation or censure. Somehow, despite all odds, it just made Quistis feel worse. Her sense of faint unease with Seifer back in Esthar had blossomed into full-fledged guilt in the hothouse environment of the Garden.

She was beginning to get a headache.

"You don't want to be an instructor?" Squall said, finally. "I thought you'd be pleased."

Quistis sighed for the fourth time. "I'm resigning as a SeeD. Not just as an instructor."

"You can't." Squall snapped. He spoke it as if it was a rule, no, a commandment, engraved two inches deep in a marble slab on a sacred mountain.

"Look, just fire me. Please." Quistis said. The words hurt and she coughed them out of her mouth like chicken bones while the black hole in her stomach grew deeper with guilt and dread. "Get it over with."

"Why?"

"Well, according to regulation 314, (part b) you really have to. Sir."

Squall's expression erased itself for a second. He slid the SeeD manual onto his lap and surreptitiously began to hunt through its pages.

Quistis took pity. "Regulation three-hundred and fourteen. It's the rather ambiguously worded rule about SeeDs being found unworthy of the trust placed in them by Garden. Sir."

"Don't call me sir."

"The rather ambiguously worded rule about SeeDs being found unworthy of the trust placed in them by Garden- _Squall_."

Squall ran a finger down the lines of text. Quistis watched.

It was beginning to dawn on her that she hadn't really thought this through. In all of her imagined scenarios, none had ever ended with Squall simply saying "No." He would say "You've disappointed us all." He'd say "You really should have told us sooner." Then he would say, "Are you sure?", and she'd say "Yes.", and then she would leave.

Squall looked up from the manual, eyes sharpening. He said "Where will you go if you can't be a SeeD and you can't stay at Balamb?"

Quistis couldn't help noticing that their conversation seemed to have deviated from her carefully planned script. Instead, Squall was asking difficult questions.

"I'll find something, Squall."

Squall cleared his throat. He closed the manual he had been reading and stowed it away in a desk drawer. "You're worth anybody's trust. Your last mission was a success. Your objective was to assess a potential threat. Not only did you evaluate this threat to the best of your abilities, you defused it. You found a missing person who all the Gardens have been hunting for two years. You went beyond the call of duty. The circumstances don't matter."

"They _do_ matter." Quistis said without conviction. Her cowardly voice, the one which told her it was all right to stay in bed until seven-thirty instead of getting up early to exercise and catch up on her office work, was telling her that she maybe didn't deserve to be fired.

"Not to me. Someday I'd like a full mission report, one with everything that happened in that hospital, but that's as far as it goes."

"I don't understand." said Quistis. "I didn't tell Garden that Seifer was alive. I had three weeks in Trabia. Anything could have happened."

"But it didn't." Squall leant forward. He picked up the badge and spoke as if to himself. "Hyne. I though _Seifer_ was going to be the one who overreacted. Goes to show you never can tell."

Quistis, for the first time in her life, had absolutely nothing to say. She felt vaguely insulted, but, most of all, relieved.

Eventually she gathered her thoughts together enough to speak. "What are you going to do?"

Squall's silhouette was dark against the setting sun. "Nothing."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Why?"

Squall closed his hand into a fist. He set the badge on the back of his right hand and flipped it absentmindedly from one knuckle to another until it reached his thumb. Then he started it all over again. "I already explained this to Almasy. You're adults. As long as this doesn't get in the way of any of your SeeD work, I'm happy." The badge made one final circuit of his knuckles before he flipped it back onto the desk. "I'll just let it run its course. "

Quistis felt obscurely deflated. "But- I let my personal life get in the way of my job!"

"When was the last time you let your job get in the way of your personal life?"

"I let Garden down." she countered.

Squall looked up, shadowed eyes narrowing. "So you quit? What will you do then?

"I told you," Quistis lied. "I'll be able to find something."

Squall continued. "We can't waste your talents. You're a good fighter and a better teacher. I can't fire you. "A small smile. "Even if you want me to. I can't afford the waste."

Quistis just looked at him. She felt emotionally exhausted, having expended double the mental energy in thirty minutes that she usually spent on her emotions in a week.

A small part of her felt ashamed and foolish for having wasted Squall's time.

Squall frowned, watching her expression. "Oh, for Hyne's sake, consider yourself formally reprimanded, if you like. That is _it_." He picked up the badge from his table, reached across the desk for her hand and placed the badge in her palm. "Don't lose it."

Quistis closed her fingers over the tiny disc of metal. "Really?"

"Yes. Unless you've got anything more to say."

"I do have a question." Quistis said as she pinned the brooch back onto her lapel. She fastened the clasp neatly over the tear she had caused by ripping the badge off.

Squall watched her. "Go on."

"Why did you make me an instructor again?"

Silence.

"It's been two years."

Squall leaned back into his chair. He reached under his table to flick a switch and lights sprang to life around them to illuminate the dusky room. "Xu persuaded me. And it's not as if you aren't ready. I thought you deserved it, for all the work you put in on this last mission."

Quistis blushed, unsure what Squall was implying, if indeed he _was_ implying anything at all. "I did everything I could to continue my mission as normal. Given the circumstances."

""I believe that."

"Why?"

"Because you always do." Squall said. He smiled faintly and glanced down at his desk. There were two stacks of paper there, an in-tray and an out-tray. The out-tray was the size of a slim novel. The in-tray was the size of a phone directory. "No more. I mean it. I'm not letting either of you go. And I really have more work to do. I'll see you around. Good luck with your new job."

Quistis nodded in response. She snapped off a perfect salute, something that she rarely bothered with, and walked out along the red carpet to the hall. She was only halfway to the door before Squall's voice stopped her. "Quistis."

"Squall?"

"I sent him to finish off that paperwork in the dorms. Just thought you'd like to know."

Quistis blushed deeply, glad that the subdued lighting hid her face. "Thanks." she said, and left.

She was stopped by another shout just outside the office doors.

"Hey! Quistis?"

Quistis turned as slowly as she could manage, hoping to give the impression that she was busily on her way to something more important. Like Squall's voice, Xu's was instantly recognisable. And Xu would have Words. Xu always had twice as many words as anybody else.

"I heard a surprising rumour today. But I'm hoping it's not true."

Quistis turned around with a heartfelt sigh. "This wouldn't be the rumour about, say, the hotdog stealing monster?"

"It wouldn't." Xu replied. She regarded Quistis with a speculative glace as the taller SeeD seated herself in front of her desk.

"All right." Quistis held up a finger. But I need coffee first."

"Your wish is my command," Xu reached behind her and flipped the switch of a tiny percolator sandwiched in between the computer monitor and the fax machine. She waited until the water boiled and the percolator emptied itself with a noise like a caterchpillar with acute constipation, then poured the thick liquid into two cups. She handed Quistis a chipped mug reading 'Mercenaries Do It for Money." and peered at her over the computer screen. "And now, we need to talk. What were you _thinking_?

"Xu-" Quistis said..

"Can I say just one thing?"

"Yes." Quistis took a large gulp of coffee to fortify herself. Belatedly she realised that her body language was far too defensive, and unfolded her arms, trying to cultivate a relaxed, open body posture. It didn't work. She was far from relaxed.

"_Why_? Ending the world apart -he's just not your type, and we both know it."

"He's got good points." Quistis said.

"Yes" Xu said reflectively. "Seifer does have his good points. Unfortunately they're so overshadowed by his character flaws it's like comparing a salt cellar with the yearly net production of an Esthar Lake sodium mine."

"He does have good points."

"Really? What? I guess he's waterproof."

"Xu, _everyone_ is waterproof. It's not much of a life skill."

"Flame retardant?"

"Now you're just making fun."

"I'm serious. In fact, I'm thinking that I should find out."

Quistis drained her coffee in one gulp. "Be serious…"

"You've dated lots of nice guys before."

"Yes. Lots of nice guys." Quistis said in a cold tone of voice. It said this-is-not-going-any-further. It said this-conversation-is-ending. Right now.

Xu didn't appear to notice. "Please don't tell me you've finally got a taste for a bit of rough." She finished her own coffee, took Quistis' empty cup and refilled the percolator. "It's not that. Look. I've dated 'nice' men. They were all polite. Endlessly polite. They asked before they kissed me, they held car doors open and paid for my drinks. But whenever it came to a fight they all thought I needed protecting. I don't want that anymore and I never needed it. Even when I was sixteen, I never needed it. Ever since the wars, men talk to me just because I'm famous."

Xu frowned. "They talk to you because you're blond and pretty. Being famous is merely an extra, I assure you." She handed Quistis her second mug of coffee. "So that's the reason? He doesn't treat you differently just because you're famous?"

"I doubt he's noticed."

"He's too arrogant." Xu muttered. She seemed to be turning something over in her mind... " "He's annoying, Quistis. It's not the Middle Ages any more. You don't just need a dick and a big sword to rule the world."

"Xu." Quistis said. Her tone of voice had dropped a few degrees below freezing, and this time her friend respected the hint.

"So you chose him just because he doesn't care about you?

"No. I chose him because he does." Quistis said. "Look, I'm not justifying this to you. I don't have to."

"It's got to be said."

"Yes. But not again. Not for the second time this morning. I know what I'm doing."

Xu looked genuinely interested. "Who was the first?"

"Zell."

"Hyne, Quistis." Xu said. She looked vaguely sympathetic. "Look, any fool can see it must mean something, or you wouldn't be sitting here defending him to me. Seifer's fairly simple. If he's around you without picking a fight for more than five minutes, that means he likes you. Fine. But that doesn't change the fact that he's a sword-swinging gung-ho war-hawk who'd hit the bottle and porn magazines like a flash if he didn't have fighting to keep him occupied…"

"And you don't like him." Quistis said. She felt faintly pleased that she'd finally got Xu to use Seifer's first name rather than just calling him 'Almasy.' It was a minor victory. She had a nasty feeling it would be the last point she'd score in their conversation.

"And I don't like him." Xu said. "But you knew that already."

"He grows on you."

"Yes, like some kind of parasitic fungus."

Quistis thought of Seifer. He was probably a mistake, but somehow it never mattered. She smiled.

Xu finished off her second cup of coffee. "I'd be happier if you were dating Selphie. Irvine, too, for that matter."

"Consecutively, or concurrently?"

"Either. Both. Does it matter?"

"I should hope so. Look, is it just the Knight thing that's bothering you? If it is, I don't know whether he knew what he was doing."

"You don't know?" Xu said slowly.

"I don't think _he_ knows."

"Great. Mental problems on top of everything else. This is looking more and more like a bad idea."

"It's not a bad idea." Quistis said. In fact, she couldn't remember having made a conscious decision to continue their relationship at any point. Around Seifer, things just happened.

"If it was anybody else, it'd be a really bad idea. But this is you, Quistis. You don't make mistakes. You don't _do_ mistakes. Especially not mistakes like Seifer. To him, SeeD's just a licence to kill."

Quistis frowned. "That's not true."

"No? Have you asked him?"

"I don't _need_ to ask him."

Xu backed off a little after that and the topic of their conversation turned to more pleasant things. Quistis managed to extricate herself after several more minutes.

She opened her assignment as soon as she was out of sight of the office. That was the first thing she did. The second thing she did was frown and bite her lip, before reading the entire letter over very carefully.

She said a rude word in the privacy of her head and walked down the corridor to Seifer's dorm room. Her speed changed as she got closer, slowing from her usual swift businesslike stride to a casual walk and then to something only slightly faster than a shuffle.

Finally Quistis gave up entirely and hovered in the main hall a few metres from the dorm turnoff. She chewed her nails, and tried to make some sense out of the emotions in her head, grading them in order of intensity, strength and rarity. There was an odd relief that everything was out in the open. It was covered by a faint sense of dread, because sometimes in battle when things revealed themselves you found out exactly how big they really were.

Underneath the feelings of relief and dread there was a childish kind of anger that things hadn't worked out exactly the way she wanted them to. The outcome of her interview with Squall had been so different from what she'd been expecting that she found it was taking her a while to adjust.

Quistis took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes for a second and then put them back on again. She smoothed down her hair, then whistled up Shiva from deep inside her brain and let her ice over the inappropriate emotions, sealing them away for a while.

Finally she squared her shoulders and marched down the corridor to the dormitories to look for Seifer's room.

It was not the easiest of places to find. The Garden authorities had wisely placed him away from all of the younger and more easily impressionable students, which meant that it was a long walk down a narrow corridor lined with nearly identical dorms. Those closest consisted of the odd post-graduate student, a few SeeDs assigned double rooms out of personal preference, and a class-full of cadets close to graduating, whom Quistis assumed should be able to look after themselves.

She reached the door - pale grey laminate, identical to all the other student dorms except for the number, which was 24602- and swung it quietly open.

The window was open onto the gathering evening, probably to release any lingering fumes of cigarette smoke. Despite the more-than-adequate ventilation it smelt of cheap tobacco, indefinable maleness and socks, with a vague scent of vile aftershave. Mixed, the scents emitted a strange and nasty blend. The aftershave was a puzzle to Quistis, as she'd never seen Seifer wearing any.

Seifer was working at a desk as she entered. Balls of crumpled paper in a rainbow of colours dotted the tiles around his feet. He cursed, threw another sheet of paper out of the window, and then looked up. His hands were stained with ink, as if he'd at least tried to work.

Quistis imagined the landscaped Garden grounds strewn with ink-stained forms. "I talked to Squall." she said, careful to keep any hint of blame out of her voice. That could come later.

Seifer looked at her for a long moment. Quistis held his gaze with the ease of long practice, and it was Seifer who caved in first. "Yeah, you don't need to say anything. It's my fucking fault. Mine and Dincht's..no, more like Dincht's, then mine. Shit. I didn't mean to." His hands twitched and then stilled, searching for cigarettes and lighter. "Guess he told you what happened."

"He did." Quistis said. Seifer seemed, not more relaxed, that was wrong, but less volatile that she had expected. She sat down on the bed, which creaked a protest.

Seifer must have interpreted her expression. "Got nothing left. I already took it out on Dincht."

Quistis remembered Zell's attitude of terrified embarrassment. No doubt he'd been expecting her to shout at him too. "He looked like you had."

Seifer grinned. It was a sharp grin, and it faded quickly. "Squall too, huh?"

Quistis nodded. "I did get the feeling he wasn't too surprised."

"Yeah. Didn't seem too disappointed, either. Fuck, he was weird. Started grilling me on the sorceresses in the middle of asking me whether I was dating you. It's like, the guy knew the two things I least wanted to talk about, and he asked me them both and I just had nothing to say."

"It was the same with me. It's just his way."

"He was cold as fuck before. Clever, though, now. He's changed."

"He has." Quistis agreed. She remembered the challenges Squall had faced, piloting the Garden through the aftermath of the Sorceresses' War. He'd dealt with the Trabian rebuilding, Galbadian's lingering resentment, and their sudden rush of new post-victory contracts with style and ruthless efficiency, proving once and for all that he did not take after his father. "He has."

They both looked at each other for a moment, each aware that they hadn't really discussed anything, and both made a independent decision to avoid the subject.

Quistis spoke first. She forced a lighthearted tone into her voice. "And besides, you know what they've done? They made me an instructor."

Seifer almost looked relieved. "I know that. Thought you were pleased."

"I am, but, not this." Quistis said. She hooked the crumpled envelope from her belt and unfolded the paper inside, smoothing it out. "I don't have any experience."

"Bullshit. You've got loads of experience. Hyne, if you can teach Squall and me, you can teach anyone." Seifer said. He pushed his pen away with no sign of reluctance, giving up Xu's forms as a lost cause. "So what've you got? Post grads, advanced classes, exam cramming?"

Quistis sighed. She passed the sheet to Seifer and sighed harder as ink stains immediately transferred themselves from his hands to the paper, visible only as indigo patches in the fast-darkening room. "Nothing so easy. I'm teaching first years."

"Doesn't sound so bad."

"It's basic stuff. Boring. I won't know what to do with them. I'm bad with kids."

"Don't ask me." Seifer said. He folded the form and handed it back to her. "They won't even let me near them."

Quistis knew automatically who he meant by _they_. Always the same now. Garden.

"Hyne, I'm tired." she said, changing the subject. It was an invitation of sorts, and Seifer, always with a keen eye for the main chance, came to sit beside her on the bed. He put one arm around her waist, Quistis drew her knees up to her chest and they both sat back against the wall.

Quistis drowsed for a while, her back bony and cold against the wall. She shifted, moving into Seifer's body for comfort. He was uncharacteristically quiet, the air between them heavy with things never said, but she knew that he wasn't asleep.

The room was full dark before either of them spoke, and it was Quistis who broke the silence.

"Come to bed."

"We're _in_ bed."

"Mine is bigger."

"What's wrong with here?" Seifer said. His posture shifted, becoming more inviting.

Quistis sighed. "It smells."

Seifer never needed much of an invitation to spend time at Quistis's slightly more luxurious room with its en-suite shower and double bed, and so they left shortly afterwards.

Quistis turned into the main corridor automatically, forgetting their surreptitious habits of the last few days, and Seifer either didn't remember or didn't care enough about what people thought to notice. They were halfway around the hall before she began to feel slightly uneasy. There weren't many people around, but those few who were ignored them so ostentatiously that Quistis knew they was being watched.

Nobody said anything apart from Seifer, who began relating, at top volume, a complicated and obscene urban myth she'd heard years before, the kind that usually floated round Garden.

Quistis didn't really listen, but she was grateful for the effort. Her own subliminally silent whisper called up Shiva, and the ice GF lent her her own cold strength. The shatter of ice crystals drowned out her own self-doubt.

_What are we doing? It's like I'm spending time trying to convince people, and I can't even convince myself._

_Most of the time_.

Quistis junctioned herself to the GF all the way to the lift door before she let the magic fade with a sigh. She felt cold, one of the more unpleasant side-effects of the Guardian Force. Seifer was watching her carefully in the glass of the lift doors, frowning. Quistis gave him her most reassuring smile.

It must not have worked very well, because he immediately moved closer, looking at her carefully, as if she was about to explode, and then he bent slightly down and moved his head to the side and kissed her.

Quistis responded automatically, first out of shock and then out of enthusiasm. She felt warm, all in a rush, and slightly tingly in all the right places. It had been a good idea to invite him back, she decided, and fast on the heels of that thought came one that she was getting paranoid about this whole arrangement, that she just needed to relax.

Seifer drew back and she looped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him harder. He responded with a shrug and greater enthusiasm.

Quistis could understand the enthusiasm, but she was slightly puzzled about the shrug until the lift doors opened and a load full of final-year students exited.

* * *

Seifer ignored them all.

He reached over and kissed her in front of everybody, and Hyne it was a turn-on.

_Just let them say she's not mine now. Hands off, Trepies._

Her lips were cold as ice, and just for a minute Seifer could have sworn that he saw Shiva looking out of her eyes, but he dismissed the idea out of hand. Who in their right mind would junction a GF inside Garden?

Quistis didn't pull away until all the students had left, most shooting horrified glances in her general direction. There was a kind of nervous defiance to the gesture, as if she was trying slightly too hard. Seifer didn't mind. He told himself that she'd had a shock, that Squall had freaked her, that she was still thrown out of whack by her new assignment.

Anyway, she seemed fine when they were both in the lift. Relaxed. Chatty, even. So normal that he almost forgot about the ice GF.

They walked to Quistis's room in a nearly comfortable silence. She opened her door with a blue-striped keycard and let them both in. It was Seifer's first visit in a state that actually allowed him to take much stock of the surroundings, and he looked around with interest, comparing Quistis's ultra-neat study to his own dorm room.

He found it strange, in a way. The room was far too clean by his standards. The only human touches were those which strict usage allowed in a chilly world of duty and routine. A dog-eared journal wedged under one table leg. A can of oil on the table itself. A few paperback novels, arranged by size and colour. The desk and chair were the only items that actually looked used. Seifer had very little imagination, but he could see her sitting there, night after night, busy chasing figures down, running them to ground patiently, in orderly form, just like she hunted monsters.

They sat, Quistis with her legs neatly crossed in the swivel-seated desk chair, Seifer lounging on the bed. Given the heat of their kiss in the hall, Seifer had half-hoped for a rerun of the previous night, but as he looked at Quistis he got the feeling that it hadn't been that kind of invitation. The expression on her face reminded him of that one night in Trabia after Garden had been bombed, when she'd asked him just to sleep with her, and he had. Her eyes looked just the same, slightly out of focus and strangely dissociated from reality.

She didn't say anything. Seifer was notoriously bad at silences. He looked round the room for something to say that wasn't '_Fuck, this room's boring_' and then Quistis spoke.

"Have you seen anyone apart from Zell since you came back? I know Fuujin and Raijin wanted to talk to you."

"Saw them. Xu, Irvine, Selphie, even." Seifer said, then sighed. "I saw Rinoa. And Squall, of course."

"They've been together since the wars. She thinks they're in love." Quistis said noncommittally.

"Must be. He gets this sickening look on his face whenever he talks about her. Unfreezes." He made a face. "It's like a damn puppy."

Quistis smiled. "They've been like that ever since..well, you know when. I think it's sweet. Slightly revolting, sometimes, but sweet."

Seifer remembered Squall's silver ring on the chain around Rinoa's neck. "Did they ever bother to get married?" he asked. It wasn't something he'd thought about at the time. There was nothing unusual about Rinoa wearing a wedding ring around her neck rather than on her ring finger. It was a fairly common habit in SeeDs, one which decreased the risk of getting your fingers cut off in a fight when your rings snagged on weapons or clothing.

Quistis looked up sharply, maybe remembering that Seifer had once dated Rinoa. "They're not. As good as, really, but no." She sighed. "I don't know. It seems so simple for them. For example, what are we really doing here? Sometimes, I don't know, it's like I'm trying to convince other people that we're really serious, and I can't even convince myself."

Seifer began to have a bad feeling about this. If anything, his pride felt more bruised than anything else. He'd always been better at actions than words, so he reached across the narrow strip of carpet that divided them, drew her down onto the bed beside him and kissed her neck, anything to make himself forget the doubt in her eyes. Anything to ensure the next words out of her mouth weren't '_and it's been fun-but_..'

_When the hell did I start needing this? Not you as well, Quistis. I thought you knew. I thought it was all right, that you didn't just look at me and see two years ago._

_Guess I was wrong._

He thought for one minute that she would ask him to leave, but then she turned in his hands and kissed him full on the lips

_Or maybe I was right after all_

He forgot all about it then and only remembered a couple of hours later, when he lay in bed with Quistis beside him, sexy as hell in one of his T shirts and a pair of pink knickers.

_If she was still sore about the wars if she thought we were wrong together, she wouldn't have done that, would she?_

_Or that? _

_Sure, we're strange bedfellows, but it works, yeah, it damn well works…_

* * *

Quistis woke very early in the morning. For once, it wasn't Seifer's fault. She'd opened a window earlier in the night and forgotten to close it. She lay back in the bed and listened to the dawn chorus, hoping that Seifer was asleep. He wasn't the easiest of people to sleep next to, but the three weeks in Trabia had gotten her used to sharing a bed. His sleep patterns were…erratic, to say the least. He twitched like a wet dog in his sleep with impeccable timing, usually when she was just drifting off.

_But at least he doesn't snore, _Quistis thought, counting her blessings. Their enthusiastic bout of divide-and-conquer sex seemed to have laid her fears to rest, and for once she had slept easily.

She was thinking how she enjoyed watching him sleep when he turned over and said

"Been awake for long, Quis?" in a voice that didn't sound at all drowsy, and she realised he hadn't been.

"Sleeping well?"

"Enough."

Quistis shrugged and rolled over onto her front. Seifer seemed to need about three hours of sleep a night to function normally. She was almost coming to accept his erratic sleeping patterns as the norm. It led to some unusual midnight conversations.

Strangely enough, it was usually Quistis who initiated their insomniac talks. She found it nearly impossible to go straight back to sleep after she'd been woken up, especially if Seifer was in bed with her and not sleeping himself. Tonight was no exception, and the topic of conversation certainly wasn't new either. Ever since their time in Trabia, when she'd learned that Seifer had memories of their childhood together that hadn't been erased by the GFs, she'd been hungry for first-hand memories of her own. Something always kept them from discussing the topic in the morning. It seemed too…_private_, somehow.

Their talks always started with the same words. _Do you remember?_

"Do you remember the summers? Back in Centra with Matron?"

Seifer thought for a minute, as he always did. "Was a long time ago. Used to make boats out of driftwood."

"The sails were…blue."

"Right. An old tarp got washed up one day."

"The coast always used to catch the driftwood."

"Damn handy in winter. What about the storms? Strong enough to blow the whole damn place down"

"I was never scared, though."

"Me, neither." Seifer said, as if it was obvious and he hadn't been five years old at the time.

"It always seemed as if Edea would protect us."

"Guess she did."

"Yes. Did you know the only reason she took Ultimecia's power was to save us from the sorceress?"

"That worked out." Seifer said sarcastically.

"You know, it did." said Quistis. "It really did. I think she felt sorry for Ultimecia, as well."

"Matron was always a soft touch. Look where it got her."

"She deserves a happy ending, Seifer."

"Don't start."

"Please visit."

"I'm not going. It won't make her happy. It'll just fuck her up even more." Seifer said, and changed the subject. "What's the place like now?"

"Wrecked." said Quistis, not entirely happy with the switch.

"So how's she live there?"

"In the old lighthouse. Cid made it more comfortable for her." Quistis said. In fact, they'd all helped, taking loads of furniture from the mainland and salvaging whatever they could from the wrecked main buildings. She lay in rumpled sheets in the darkness and remembered those sunny days, pleased that she could.

Seifer said nothing else. Quistis remembered something that she'd much rather have forgotten. "_To him, SeeD's just a licence to kill."_ Xu had said.

_"That's not true."_

_"No? Have you asked him?"_

_"I don't need to ask him." _Quistis had told Xu, but she went ahead and asked him anyway. She could almost hear Seifer's scowl.

"SeeD?"

"Yes. What do you think of SeeD?"

"SeeDs?" He paused for a moment. "Squall's an uptight asshole. Zell, complete fuckwit. Selphie's just obsessed with sex, and Irvine's obsessed with _her_.."

Quistis smiled, safe in the knowledge that Seifer couldn't see her. "No! I mean SeeD. As a whole."

"Damn soldier farm. I dunno…..freedom, I guess. You know what I found out, travelling through all those little cities? Everyone's scared. They're waiting, is all. Waiting for all the big strong SeeDs to come slay the monsters, sort their problems. If you can't fight, you can't go out the fences and live to tell the tale."

"Is that why you wanted to be a SeeD?" Quistis asked curiously. She'd been expecting some offhand answer along the lines of 'good money' or possibly 'legally sanctioned violence.'

"I never wanted to be a SeeD." Seifer said. He rolled over and raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her. ""I wanted to be a knight. Stupid, huh?"

"Careful what you wish for." Quistis said, trying to keep her tone light. Whatever adrenaline surge had woken her, it was fading now. She snuggled back down in the curve of Seifer's arm. It was too warm for snuggling, but she didn't care. Seifer lay back down beside her and they slept together as if they'd been doing it a lot longer than only three weeks.

* * *

Seifer left early the next morning, timing his exit to coincide with Quistis's new assignment. Xu had called earlier on that evening, before Quistis had come, to leave him a timetable of sorts. He had been assigned to the engineering section for most of the slots, though there were a fair amount of free periods mixed in. Seifer was still trying to decide whether or not it was worth the trouble of actually sticking to a schedule for once in his life.

There was no news yet of the classes Squall had mentioned. Seifer couldn't work out whether that was a good or a bad sign. For that matter, he couldn't understand why Squall was going out of his way to get him involved in engineering. Leonhart would have to change his ideas fast if he thought that Seifer intended to be stuck in some garage all his life.

Seifer shrugged. He didn't much care what Leonhart wanted him to do. Just because he was the Commander of Garden didn't mean that Seifer had to do anything that he said.

He told himself that he was visiting the garage because he was in the mood for weapons, that was all. Weapons were predictable. They didn't ask you questions or try and talk about your feelings. You put them somewhere and they stayed there until you picked them up again.

He reached the garage and walked in through the ENGINEERS ONLY door. The room was empty, but he felt at home straight away. Like the training yards, the workshops were places where things started and finished, only the 'things' were weapons, instead of fights. It reminded him of the place he'd lived before the orphanage, though he couldn't remember why.

_It must be 'cause it's such a fucking mess…_

Something touched the back of his head very gently. Seifer shivered, and looked up. He flicked a stray leather strip away with one hand, and fended off five pounds of assorted ironwork with the other.

His first impression of the room had been a chaotic mess, with a rather low ceiling. On further inspection, the roofspace was actually quite tall, Seifer estimated, twenty feet straight up. It just _seemed_ lower because of all the things hanging from it. There were swords and guns and weapons of different shapes and sized, some antique, most just knackered. Strips of leather, ropes and cords, lightbulbs on long pieces of flex, ancient yellow miner's helmets hung amongst tools of every shape and size, more tools than you could possibly use. There was one long rack of chains, sorted by diameter, and next to that, a bundles of what looked like dried Marlboro tentacles. There was a hooked pole leaning up against the wall that he guessed were used to snag some of the items down.

The swords he'd noticed on his earlier visit had vanished, replaced by a pile of unpleasantly waxy-looking bricks.

Seifer ducked his head to avoid premature decapitation, then moved over to examine the pile. He poked one, carefully. It went _squish_.

"What are you doing?"

Seifer spun, simultaneously wiping one hand on his trousers.

It was only the SeeD. Closer, she looked older than he'd thought in the Quad, a good fifteen years older than he was. Her hair was prematurely grey, with only a few strands of its original colour. She wore a vest under a dark boiler suit, its sleeves knotted round her waist.

"Squall sent me. Said you guys could teach me something."

"I don't know about teaching. We've got work needs doing. Not teaching."

Seifer shrugged. So did Deft.

"But ours not to reason why with the commander, I guess. It's true we could do with a hand here and there." She pointed to the dimmed forge fire in the centre of the room, its embers dead. "Or you could sort out your own project. Something useful."

Seifer grinned. "So when do I get to make swords?"

Deft looked at him as though he'd just requested a Bite Bug in a bun. "You don't."

"Why?" Seifer said.

Deft frowned. She settled back onto a pile of scrap iron and shifted slightly as it settled under her weight. "Because it takes too long. And we don't need swords. We have _spare_ swords. We need sensible things, like rifles. They're what most of the students are using nowadays. Even better, make some valves for the sewage system. Archimedes screws. Ventilation fans. Cogs. Gears. Not swords. They're too hard." She looked at him. "I don't suppose you actually know how to make any of those things?"

"No."

Deft looked like someone making the best of a bad job. "What _can_ you do?"

"Fight." said Seifer.

"Useful things. What can you make? If you can make swords, that's fine, don't get me wrong. If you can make anything even vaguely useful, well, that'd be even better."

Seifer's dreams of actually getting his hands on functioning weaponry were fading fast. He clutched at straws. "How long does it take to learn how to make swords?"

"That depends on who you read." said Deft. She pointed at a book one of many stacked randomly on the shelves among jars of nameless organs. Vadi's treatise, _Cold Steel_, says you have to spend a week sitting under a waterfall wrapped in a Chocobo hide before you even touch the steel. The Lotal school recommends a whole winter's meditation up a mountain somewhere in Trabia." She pointed at another book. "Of course, we've lost so much history. Old texts aren't always reliable. For instance Godfrey's book _Knighthood and Battle_ advises the quenching of the steel with blood, but I, personally, have found it makes hopeless swords."

Seifer chose to interrupt the rant. "So, a long time, then."

"Yep."

"There's no chance I could-"

"No. Of course, if you persevered for, say, twelve months-"

"What then?"

"You would be merely very bad."

Seifer scowled. "So what the fuck am I supposed to _do_?"

Deft gave him the bright and sunny smile of someone who had already had a very long day. "There's always broken weaponry. Separate the bits we can use from the bits we can't. Or go sort through the magical items. I need nineteen steel pipes, a bag of screws and a water crystal, and I need them _yesterday_." She interpreted Seifer's scowl. " Or, hell, go and make a better mousetrap or something. Anything." She was being facetious, but Seifer interpreted her comment literally.

"How?"

"Sort through the slush pile. Find something you can use." She stood up and pointed to the pile of scrap metal that she had been sitting on for the last five minutes.

Seifer scowled in her general direction. Everything on the pile looked far too worn to be of any use. "Where do you get all of this crap?"

"We have an electromagnet in the trash chute. It's amazing what perfectly good things people throw out."

Seifer looked at the lump, which seemed to consist mostly of old coathangers. "Uh, yeah."

He was five minutes into poking at the pile of rusty, welded metal when the garage dor opened and a couple of other people walked in. The first was an old man, medium height, grey heir, walking with a limp. Seifer's gaze immediately slid past him to the second person who was a girl a few years older than he was. She was not unattractive, and, he realised as he looked down, very, very pregnant. Both were dressed in the same stained dark boiler suits as Deft, and both ignored him completely. The old man sat at a tiny workstation over on the opposite side of the room. He started to feed punched cards into a tiny machine. The girl avoided Seifer as best she could, though her size and the confines of the tiny room made it quite difficult.

Seifer returned his attention to the pile of metal, which seemed slightly more interested in him than the new arrivals. He continued his search for something useful. Useful, and sharp.

He reached into the pile and took hold of a metal chair leg, moving it from side to side to loosen the nest of tangled rubbish around it. A pull loosened it, and he weighed it in his hands thoughtfully, before deciding it didn't offer much scope as a weapon, a mouse trap, or, come to that, anything much. Reaching to the back of the bin, he paused, discovering that the removal of the bar had stirred the junk pile up a bit. One shiny item stood out among the rust.

It was small and carefully constructed out of fine silver wire, tiny cogs and metal plates with six thin legs. Seifer wondered what it did. It didn't appear to be too badly damaged, save for a long scrape along one side and a heel-shaped dent in one end. Seifer pulled it out from the rubble, ignoring snapping and pinging noises. He wiped grease and flaked rust off its surface, rubbing harder as a logo began to appear under the grime. A familiar logo. Odine brand.

Seifer had heard through the grapevine that Odine was a slimy little motherfucker, but he was the best inventor in the business. _Good make_, he thought. _I can use this. _As he turned to place his prize on the corner of the dead forge behind him, and accidentally knocked elbows with the girl. She glared at him. Seifer reckoned himself a connoisseur of glares, or he would if he had know how to spell it- from Xu's best stone cold icy glances to the I-hate-all-you-soldiers stare of the average Estharian. It was a good glare, but he'd seen better.

He attempted conversation, pointing at her swollen abdomen. It was a mistake.

"So, is that a baby?"

A second glare. This one conveyed the opinion that there were things in the jars around the wall which were smarter than Seifer. "No. It's a tumour."

Her comment killed the conversation extremely effectively. Seifer figured that that was kind of the point.

At least it meant he didn't have to worry about making polite small talk. He reached round her, picked up the Odine machine and moved to the only spare seat in the place, next to the veteran. He had examined it for all of ten seconds before the geezer said to him. "Not very polite, are you?"

Seifer wondered if the old man had heard the curses that he'd been muttering under his breath at the machinery. "I haven't even said anything." he pointed out.

"When I was a young man, it was polite to introduce yourself."

Seifer poked one of the legs on the Odine machine. It jerked spastically a few times and then fell off. He dropped the device, irritated. "Fuck, I can't win with you guys, can I?"

Silence. The girl still ignored him. The old man went back to feeding cards into his machine.

He tried courtesy. "I'm Seifer. Who the hell are you, anyway?"

He thought that he wasn't going to get a response until the old man turned round, so slowly that Seifer fancied he could almost hear the creaking. "I am Chy, and the young lady is Shirin." he said, speaking with a faint accent Seifer couldn't quite place. It took him a few seconds to work out that it was the same as Deft's. The accent… and the machinery. FH. Had to be.

"You're from Fisherman's Horizon."

Chy looked at Seifer with a milky gaze that indicated he might not have shit for brains, after all. "Indeed. Refugees from Esthar, many years ago. Your Commander tendered out an open contract."

"He's not my commander."

The mechanic carried on as if Seifer hadn't interrupted. "Are you aware of the Arrangement?" he said. The last word definitely had capital letters.

Seifer picked the intricate metal leg from the table and tried in vain to stick it back on. A few blue sparks jumped from tiny severed wires buried deep within its metal tendons, burning his fingers. "Nope."

"Balamb wants to map the mechanisms of this shelter. It's a great undertaking, and very important."

"Can't you just buy a map?"

"Sadly, no plans exist. We don't know how it flies, either. We just know it does."

Seifer mentally interpreted. "Squall pays you to find out how this thing flies?"

"Yes."

"It's been _two years_." Seifer said.

Chy gave a little nod of his head, as if to indicate that in the grand geological scheme of things, two years was nothing. "Indeed. Our work would be faster if Commander Leonhart would let us dismantle the core mechanisms. He's concerned about the possibility of minor complications when rebuilding."

"So it might not work when you put it all back together?" Seifer said. He felt he was beginning to get the hang of the engineer jargon.

The old man snorted. "There's a reasonable chance of average function after plans are completed."

"How reasonable?"

"Forty seven percent. Of course, we'd require at least six months to disconnect the components, draw plans, reassemble the mechanism etcetera. The whole operation shouldn't take more than eighteen months."

"So you'd need a year and a half of downtime to get it working again, and you're only half-sure you can?" Seifer said sarcastically. "That's good."

"It is." agreed Chy, quite seriously.

Seifer privately thought that Squall was either extremely brave or extremely stupid to let the engineers within touching distance of the Garden's engines.

"Less than eighteen months." A new voice cut in. It was Shirin. Her hands were oil-stained from whatever small task she'd been working on, and she smelled of fresh wood shavings. "We'd have gained technical experience we would have gained by dissembling the machinery. We could hire trained staff from FH. Their crews have worked on this Garden before. Twelve months, tops." She reached for a couple of books from a nearby shelf and began flipping through the pages.

Chy considered. His eyebrows met like mating caterpillars along the ridge of his nose. "With the new computer technology…"

Seifer realised that he was in the presence of obsession. Strangely enough, he began to feel quite at home.

He left the workshop a couple of hours later, knowing a lot more about the internal workings of Garden than he had ever wanted. The new information led him to wonder exactly how he'd have planned the Galbadian assault, if only he'd have known. They might have won.

Scary thought, that.

It was nearly lunchtime, so Seifer went straight to the canteen. He looked around for Fuujin or Quistis or Raijin as he entered, but bumped into Irvine and Selphie instead. They were waiting at the end the lunch queue, punching each other and chatting. Those two just couldn't snog quietly like normal human beings, they started fooling around, knocking things over.

Seifer grinned and went over to join the lunch line. Normally he would have automatically pushed to the front but by the look of the food on offer, he didn't exactly want to hurry.

Irvine noticed him first. Seifer could tell. The sniper gave him a polite nod and said "Hey there." but his body language turned slightly more protective. He wore a faded pair of fringed jeans and a T shirt with the slogan 'Legend' on it, and a single arrow. Pointing downwards. Seifer could tell that it had been a gift from Selphie. Nobody else other than the Trabian SeeD would buy an item like that, and nobody except the Galbadian would actually wear it.

Selphie happily leant across Irvine and gave Seifer a little wave. She seemed to have forgotten everything about Quistis, Seifer or both. Seifer put it down to GF use or some heavy medication. Sometimes Selphie's ability to forget and forgive amazed him.

She smiled. "Hi. Settling in okay?"

Seifer muttered something.

Selphie smiled brightly in Seifer's general direction. She turned back to Irvine and continued with her conversation. "Like I said, I think Matron enjoyed our company. I think we should go visit her more often."

Irvine seemed to think that her idea was a good one. "Yeah. Edea's not all…"

_Edea….._

The cafeteria around Seifer faded out. The tables disappeared, as did the walls, replaced by singing, cheering people celebrating in the frenetic way of those who knew their houses would be destroyed and the taxes raised if they didn't look damn happy. People surrounded the float, the triumphal arch of Dollet in front of them. Another relic from the pre-Lunar Cry period, the Centra era.

Seifer was vaguely watching one of the dancers and wondering how the hell her costume stayed on when he felt the dry taste of magic in the air and his attention snapped back to the sorceress.

He looked up just in time to hear a sharp retort and recognised it instantly as a rifle shot. His sorceress raised her hand just in time to cast a Protect shield, which indented, but held. There was a tiny tinkling noise as the spent bullet dropped down, hit the floor and rolled from the float onto the road. It echoed in the sudden silence.

A few seconds after Seifer, the crowd began to work out what had happened and the screaming started. The civilians were frightened, terrified that they would be either blamed or shot.

Seifer raised his sword and moved to Edea's side, ready to protect her. He scanned the melee as people ran for cover. The few members of the crowd who stood their ground looked away, afraid to meet his eyes. He realised that they were the wrong side of the gates now, trapped, but Edea was calm. She looked up at the clock, and among the bright horses and trumpets of the flashy carousel on top of the building Seifer caught the flash of a tan leather coat.

_So it _was_ him. I always thought it was…._

The cafeteria materialised around him again. Seifer blinked and realised his knuckles were blanched white, gripping the stainless steel edge of the counter so hard he half-expected to see imprints of his fingers in it when he took his hands away.

Irvine was still completing his sentence. He didn't appear to have noticed anything unusual. "-not okay. Edea-"

Seifer grabbed his shoulder, spinning him. "Says the assassin."

Irvine frowned. "What?"

"You tried to kill her. Don't think I've forgotten that." Seifer snarled, shaking. He could almost feel Edea, miserable, alone, and frightened. There was somebody that she was scared of, and he knew that it wasn't Irvine, but he couldn't stop himself.

_Oh shit, I think I'm going crazy…._

Irvine frowned. "What?" He looked confused, as if he thought he hadn't heard Seifer correctly.

"You tried to kill her."

"Kill who?"

"The sorceress."

"You tried to kill _me_." Irvine pointed out. "Don't think I've forgotten that, either"

Seifer scowled at the Galbadian. "Weren't you supposed to be on my side anyway?

Irvine jabbed one finger at Selphie. "Weren't you supposed to be on _her_ side anyway?" Whatever impulse had made Seifer remember the wars was fading. "I'm on my side. That's all anyone is. And if they say different, they're lying."

"You're on Quistis's side, too." Irvine said, reasonably.

Seifer's mood shifted down a gear, temporarily disarmed. "Well, yeah, but.." The Galbadian sniper was still using that fucking reasonable tone of voice, which pissed Seifer off.

"All I was saying, was, we went to visit Edea last week. There was some craft hanging around. We scared it off. You got a problem with that?"

"You look like you need to get some sleep." Selphie said brightly. Her tone was cheerful, almost teasing, as if she'd forgotten the accusations and the spilled food.

"Maybe you're right." Seifer muttered.

"Quistis keeping you up at night?"

Irvine and Seifer both ignored her. "What were you saying?" Seifer asked. "Some fuckup with Edea?"

"We saw a strange boat around. Estharian, it looked like."

Seifer frowned. "Estharian?"

"Know anything?"

Shit, no, I haven't even been into Esthar. Can't even leave this place now. What've they got to do with Centra?"

Irvine looked thoughtful. "Maybe nothing. Maybe..I don't know." He picked out some food and turned to sit down. "Don't worry about it."

"Want to eat with us?" Selphie asked him.

"Uh.." Seifer tried desperately to think of an excuse, looking frantically around the room. He noticed Raijin and Fuujin taking seats over the other side of the canteen. "Thanks for the offer, but nah."

"Okay, then." Selphie said kindly. She gave him a strange look, but by then Seifer was well on his way to joining his posse, and didn't notice in the slightest.

* * *

Selphie knew that everything had been forgiven since the wars, but sometimes she worried about Seifer, in spite of the whole sleeping-with-Quistis thing. Just for a minute there, in the food line, he'd looked weird, kind of dreamy, like in the wars. And then he'd said that strange thing to Irvine before making his excuses as soon as Fuujin and Raiijin entered the room.

She watched as he slid into a seat opposite Raijin and Fuu, saying something which made them both smile.

"What was that about?" Irvine asked her as they sat down.

"Hyne knows." Selphie said. "I hope Quistis is in a more stable mental state, or it's never going to last."

"You think it will?"

"I think it might."

"Worst kept secret in Garden." Irvine said reflectively. "What was it, three days?"

"About that." said Selphie. "But if you really think about it, I worked it out _ages _ago. I knew she was dating him in Trabia."

"You didn't."

"Almost. It could be a blessing in disguise, though. Quistis needs to get laid…and face it, he's easy on the eyes…"

Irvine looked thoughtful. "But they always used to hit each other."

"Exactly. It's like foreplay. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."

"But Squall and Seifer used to duel….Oh, Hyne. Please tell me that wasn't foreplay."

"See, that's where the metaphor breaks down…." Selphie said. "We need a new one, I know! It's like one of those movies."

"What movies?" Irvine asked sceptically

"The kind where aliens and humans forge bonds of friendship across the species barrier."

"It _is _kind of inexplicable, isn't it?"

"The truth..it's out there…" Selphie said. She turned back to her meal, humming a merry tune in between mouthfuls. Buy the end of lunch it had turned into whispered words, and then into a little song.

_"He was a boy, she was a girl-_

_Can I make it any more obvious?_

_He was a jerk, we thought she was gay_

_What more can I say?"_

She tapped out a rhythm with her knife and fork on the table, pleased with her improvisation. Irvine tried to hide a smile under his coat collar. Seifer heard a snatch of song from across the room, and scowled.

_"He wanted her, she'd never tell,_

_Secretly she wanted him as well_

_And all of her friends, they blow a fuse_

_They had a problem with his attitude." _Selphie sang, improvising rhymes as she went along. She popped the last bite of food into her mouth between verses.

_"He's a dictator boy, she said see you later boy_

_He wasn't good enough for her_

_He's just a waste of space, she's got a pretty face…"_

Across the room, Seifer punched the table top. "I'm going to kill her."

Fuujin tried hard to hide her smile. "WON'T."

"Maybe I'll just rip her tongue out.."

"NOT ALLOWED."

It's not like anyone won't notice." Raijin said quietly, He'd been wisely silent throughout their whole discussion.

"ACCURATE. TUNEFUL. AMUSING."

"Perjurous." Seifer snapped.

"Boss, harsh, yeah, but I can see the point, I mean, I did think she was gay when I first met her."

Fuujin kicked him under the table. "RAIJIN, SHUSH."

Seifer gave him a filthy look, and Raijin shut up, bashfully. They watched as Selphie finished the song and cleared her plates from the table.

"FOOD, AWFUL. AGAIN."

"Yeah."

* * *

Quistis gave the food counter a disgusted stare as she entered the cafeteria. Maybe she'd just have a salad.

She brushed past Irvine and Selphie on the way out. The cowboy raised his hat and said "Hey, QT!" in a voice which sounded so laid back Quistis worried about his vital signs.

Selphie touched her arm "So you're sleeping with Seifer Almasy." she said in a light conversational tone.

Quistis sighed. "You know, do you?"

"All of Garden knows."

"Great."

"So, it's definitely true…"

Quistis lost her patience, and didn't bother to look for it. "Well, I've done many things with Seifer, and sleeping is probably one of the least interesting of them, yes."

"You might want to be careful there."

Since meeting Xu, Quistis had had several encounters with the more obsessive Trepies. The threshold of her patience had been considerably lowered. "Look, I have had this lecture so many times. I don't want to hear how this cannot possibly work. I don't want to hear about what he did during the wars because I already know. And I certainly don't want to hear any jokes about lapdogs because frankly, they're just NOT FUNNY."

"Ouch." Selphie said. She looked sympathetically at Quistis. "You must have had it bad."

Irvine seemed to have something on his mind. "He's not a lapdog." he said. "More like a wolf. And wolves that don't run with the pack go a little crazy, out there on the plains. I don't want you to get bitten."

"Thanks for that piece of advice." Quistis said sarcastically.

Irvine tipped his hat. "No cost."

She walked past them both and into the canteen when she joined Seifer, pretending to ignore any accusing silences from the more obsessed Trepies. The posse made her welcome, carefully skirting round the topic of their relationship, and after she'd eaten, Quistis went back to her office to finish up some work.

That was pretty much the pattern for the next few days. Quistis worked long hours and when she wasn't working she shared her bed with Seifer. He was working in the garages, putting in some long hours, too. She'd wake up to find him lying next to her, hands knotted behind his head, working on some small pointless task or sitting on the edge of her bed, shoulders slumped and hands balanced on his knees, a perfectly straight line of smoke rising from the cigarette held in his left hand. They didn't talk much. They didn't have time.

Neither of them had intended to make the subject taboo. It just happened.

* * *

The Gilbert and Sullivan title song is for Squall and for Quistis. Either, or both. And as for Selphie's song, that's to be sung to the tune of 'Sk8ter Boy' by Avril Lavigne. This formatting is really pissing me off. I'd just like it to show the way I wrote it, on Word. With cute ltitle stars for point-of-view changes instead of crappy lines and single spacing. Anybody who can help with the above, please let me know.

Long time no update, but I've just taken my written finals. Anyway, this chapter turned out a bit Dawson's Creek-y. It was originally much less conversation-focused, but I had to swap quite a lot into the next chapter as it was getting too damn long. Next chapter: Seifer vs. Zell: the rematch, Laguna, the Estharvision Song Contest, and an inventive method of vermin control.

Reviews:

Altol: liked the new ch of F&I. Lots.

Anonymous. Ta, Mystery Man, (or woman)

Ardwynna Morrigu: Zell and Seifer together are just two very tall adolescents.

Breaker-one: Thanks loads for all your reviews. They make me smile.

Cyberwing: No. She didn't.

Ghandi-Owns-You; yeah, I missed a gag there, but I though rule 69 was cheesy enough to make up for it.

Ghost140: I hail from Notttingham, UK, home of Robin Hood and his merry men. To pre-empt stalkers, no, I don't live there at the moment.

Jack Hanek: Yeah, I hated Zell in the game. I never could get his limit break to work properly. He works in the story though.

Kit Spooner. I likes my plots. I'd like to be an original author one day, and fanfiction allows me to get clichés out of my system in a readymade world.

Mana Angel: that sense of 'finally washing out and hanging to dry the dirty underwear you've been hiding under your bed' is exactly what I was aiming for.

Melete: Alan Moore comics aren't that great, I just like Vendetta. But I can't wait for Sin City to hit the UK.

Nezsa: updates will continue: can't guarantee when though. I wouldn't say I have a life, but I'm having to work hard at the moment.

Nynaeve: I just couldn't imagine Quistis taking the news any other way other than 'OMG, I have betrayed Balamb in some subtle way, I must resign.'

Seatbelts: Squall is surprised, he just hides it well.

Seventhe: Laguna is appearing later. With Zell, he's another one who's grown on me (get it off!)Your new ff7 stuff's really enjoyable.

Sheep the Adventurer: Zell's hair is really a separate small organism which just happens to live on him.

Sickness in Salvation: Yeah, the cliffhanger wasn't as cliffhanger-y as was implied.

Superviolinist; I hope to God your exams were less stressful than mine. There were people sleeping under the tables in the library.

signing off

kate


	8. Chapter Seven: War Is Hell Peace Boring

**Recovering The Satellites**

Fighters for liberty, fighters for power

Fighters for longer turns in the shower

Don't tell me I can't fight, or I'll punch out your lights

And history seems to agree

That I would fight you for me

That us would fight them for we….

The Gulf War Song- Moxy Fruvous(edit)

"War is hell, but peace? Peace is fucking boring"

Ray Elwood( Joaquin Phoenix)-Buffalo Soldiers

* * *

Chapter Seven: War Is Hell, Peace Is Boring

_A thousand miles away, in Esthar City:_

The city nested among the great southern plains like a moon stone in a heap of coal. It was large by anyone's standards, and still growing, though Esthar's boundary fences and road systems forced her architects to build vertically rather than horizontally. The recent era of peace and relative prosperity had led to a demand for the desert city's technology. Esthar had always been wealthy and had grown more so in the two years since the wars. The many new skyscrapers looming above the city's skyline were proof of Esthar's economic boom.

The tallest tower in Esthar, however, was not new. In fact, it was very old. It belonged to the city government, and it was several miles from Laguna Loire's office.

Laguna had become President of Esthar more by accident that by any feat of personal ambition. He'd played a key role in the dissolution of the previous Sorceress-led government. The machine city was practically minded, and they knew a good thing when they saw one. They had offered him the vacant Presidency.

Laguna sometimes wondered whether he should have declined.

The city's opinion of the President's behaviour was typically divided. Laguna managed to be a very effective ruler by dint of doing very little actual governing. He was seen in public often, providing a source of endless fuel for rumours of his eccentric conduct. It was said that he had commissioned the disgraced but quite brilliant scientist Odine to work on several highly secretive projects. It was said that he had had a mysterious and occasionally, a tragic past. It was said he'd taught himself programming in order to communicate more effectively with the members of Esthar's various technological guilds. It was said that he'd stop random citizens on the street and hold long and involved discussions with them before disappearing as quickly as he had come.

In short, Laguna took an interest, and because of that the Estharians forgave him his occasional lapses in coherency, his many so-called brilliant plans which never quite came through, and his habit of disappearing from meetings to turn up several hours later talking to whoever would listen, including old people, young children (who quite clearly had no such business interrupting the routine of such an important person), and, once, a chair.

But Laguna had a plan. And like all of his plans, it was impressive, half-baked, and, quite possibly, brilliant.

He had recently taken to visiting the skyscraper at all hours of day and night, ascending in a private elevator through the many storeys of rented apartment buildings and offices. The view helped his planning, he said. The government advisors of Esthar had long since given up trying to persuade him out of his unorthodox habits. The upper levels of the tower hadn't been used since the sorceresses' regime, and the general opinion was that it was far safer to have the President closeted in some remote eyrie rather than interfering with the proper running of the government.

Laguna stood at a dust-speckled window, watching sun sparkle from green glass and stainless steel in his bustling adopted hometown. The pane was thick with smeared fingerprints, most of them his. He leant on the window with his forearm and stared out to the desert horizon beyond the city walls.

It was a long way down.

Local legends said that the sorceress Adel had personally ejected several people from the skyscraper's windows, another reason why the rooms had remained vacant for so long.

Laguna did not doubt the rumours one bit. He'd seen the aftermath of Adel's reign himself. To date, the President hadn't had a single person tossed from the narrow balcony that ran outside the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree array of windows, though he sometimes considered defenestrating himself. The view, he thought, was stunning.

There was a pointed cough from behind him. It sounded as if it had been created by somebody clearing their throat patiently, as if to indicate that they had been coughing for some time, and that their throat was sore, and that they really would appreciate if somebody took the time to answer, please, instead of just staring off into the distance like an idiot.

Laguna, President of all Esthar, poked a finger in one ear and twirled it round. There was a faint squeaking noise. "Mmm? What?"

Kiros sighed, continuing a conversation they'd started several hours, two changes of guard, three boxes of file paper and two takeaway pizzas from the best shop in Esthar ago "I was just saying that people will need something to do." he said, doodling abstract patterns on a sheaf of file paper while he talked. "While it's happening. A celebration, maybe."

There was a faint rustling noise.

They both looked over at the heavy desk in the centre of the room. The desk was the only area of the room with even a faint and tenuous sense of order. The remaining space was crammed with piles of printouts, calculators, computers, pinned maps with crude symbols tacked onto their continents and discarded pizza boxes, all in no particular order.

"Ward?"

Ward loomed up from behind the desk, a pencil clasped neatly between two fingers like bananas. He scribbled on a piece of discarded paper taken from the towering piles of notes and diagrams which surrounded his table, stacked according to a filing system known only to the big man. He made a few finishing touches to his drawing before he held it up.

Kiros nodded. "Yeah…."

"Wow! Great idea, Ward. See, I told you we'd think of something!" Laguna said, with infectious enthusiasm. He threw up both arms. "We'll have a concert!"

Ward nodded emphatically. He lowered the paper to the desk and began to draw tiny guitar-wielding stick figures on his sketched stage.

"But not just any concert!" Laguna gushed. He paced around the room, stabbing one finger in the air. His feet brushed through piles of discarded paper as he walked, absent-mindedly rubbing a trail of dried pizza cheese from his collar. His enthusiasm did not diminish.

Kiros and Ward began to exchange worried looks.

"A competitive concert! Every country across the globe can send in a band, and we'll vote for the best one. There'll be a prize for the winner. A big, shiny, expensive prize! Give them some kind of award. And even better -we'll make sure all the singers are amateurs…"

Kiros relaxed slightly. He had started to look worried at the mention of _expense_. "It'll save money, I guess.. But the music will be.."

Ward printed out a four-letter word on his pad.

"Inspired!" Laguna shouted. "Real music, composed by people who, ya know, really have the feel for it. Played by amateurs, just doin' it for the love. None of these megabucks multinational corporations…"

"If that's what you want to do." Kiros said diplomatically. "When shall we have it?"

"We'll extend the summer festival!" Laguna enthused. "I already invited Squall."

Kiros spun in his chair to consult a large map pinned to the wall. "That's a definite advantage, given our plan."

"That's if Squall comes. I never do see him much nowadays." Laguna's tone had turned maudlin. "I should feel proud, he's all grown up and stuff. Settled down with that lovely girl, whatshername? The one who dresses all in blue. Haven't seen them for ages."

"Rinoa."

"Julia's daughter." Laguna said, his tone turning maudlin. He flopped back against one of the large picture windows, which creaked alarmingly. "You _do_ think he likes me, don't you? Only thing is, he never calls me 'Dad.' It's just not very.._fatherlike_, ya know." He turned to Kiros. "Maybe I should take him to see some football, or something? What d' you think?"

Kiros imagined Squall and his father in the same room together for more than a couple of hours and then imagined exactly what the Commander of Balamb would have to say on the topic. He winced and hurriedly changed the subject. "Anyway…. the concert……._great_ idea. What'll we call it?"

He breathed a sigh of relief as Laguna instantly cheered up. Over twenty years, and he still hadn't quite worked out whether his friend was one step away from the common fruit fly or quite possibly one of the greatest men who had ever lived.

"I don't know." the President said. "Something.._vision_. Or something.. _contest_. A song contest. The Esthar Vision Song Contest!"

Kiros winced. Laguna failed to notice.

"Maybe we could make it into one word: Estharvision. Does that sound too modern?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea, sir?" Kiros said cautiously.

"Of course it's a good idea! All my ideas are good!"

"Except for the time you signed us up for that film to make some extra cash and we ended up fighting a Ruby Dragon… "

"Oh forget that."

"And the time you ….."

"And that…"

"So..a concert. Good idea, yeah?"

* * *

"It's too dangerous." Deft snapped. She stood with oil-stained hands on her hips, frowning down at Seifer's invention.

"Aw, come on. You told me to make a mousetrap." Seifer said. He tried his most charming smile, which bounced off his supervisor's impenetrable emotional armour.

"I was joking, dammit."

Seifer scowled at her. He reached out and pressed a button on his creation's steel carapace, igniting an array of flickering lights around its casing. The mechanisms worked seamlessly, and Seifer felt a stab of pride. He'd never made anything before, unless you counted trouble. And, okay, the device had been programmed and built before he got his hands upon it, and, okay, he'd had help, but it was his. And it _worked_.

"What are these?" Deft tapped a series of cylindrical objects soldered to the machine's casing.

"Rockets."

_Rockets_?" the engineer asked. She raised a thin, greying eyebrow.

"Yeah." Seifer said.

"This is looking better and better." Deft said sarcastically. "Is there anything else that I should know?"

Seifer pointed to a pile of components heaped to the side of his stained and scarred worktable. "I was going to give it, you know, rotating knives or teeth or something.."

"Rotating _knives_?"

Seifer scratched his head. "Actually I'm having a bit of a problem with that. I was hoping you could help me." He'd found that enthusiasm covered a multitude of sins with the engineers.

Deft shrugged. "At least you're learning something."

Seifer scowled. In fact, he'd learnt a great deal of things in the last two weeks. He'd learnt how to solder connections into place, and how to fix air conditioning units. He had seen the great vaults under the Training Centre, dark tunnels haunted by men with sleeveless vests and goads, dragging haunches of fresh Chocobo to feed their monstrous charges. He had met all kinds of people he'd never known existed, from the monster trainers to the window cleaners to the armies of old women from Balamb town who kept the place clean. He knew his way around Garden better than he had when he had been a student, if you counted all the maintenance tunnels and secret boltholes equipped with kettles and comfy chairs for a few minutes stolen rest. He'd made many discoveries, and the latest revelation was that Zell Dincht liked to come down and help the mechanics on his days off.

Zell hadn't been nasty to Seifer, even though his eyebrows were taking a while to grow back and his face looked as bald as a snooker ball. In fact, he was making a visible effort to be pleasant. The effort was pissing them both off.

Seifer scowled at Zell, who was seated at Chy's workstation beside him. The old man was off examining the Garden's mechanism on his one week in three. Zell showed no sign of noticing. He was crouched over the desk, weight resting on his wrists, sanding smooth discs of layered adamantine and steel to repair his fighting gloves.

Seifer adjusted the position of the cigarette in his mouth. He had found that nobody really minded if he smoked in the workshops. The huge extractor fans were always switched on.

It was a just pity that the largest fan was positioned directly behind Zell, dousing the smaller student with a constant plume of tobacco smoke.

"I'm breathing your smoke." Zell pointed out.

Seifer clamped the butt of the cigarette between his teeth and spoke around it. "Hey, don't worry about it. Buy me a drink sometime." He saw Zell's knuckles whiten on the piece of metal he was sanding down, and grinned.

Zell's voice was surprisingly reasonable. "Where'd you get cigarettes from, anyway?"

"I have my sources." Seifer said. He selected a thin blade from the heap of metal beside him and tried it in a number of angles on the mousetrap before he decided that he needed to complete the firing mechanism first. An antique Valiant rifle hung among the junk above his head. He stretched up for it.

Zell frowned. "Are you really supposed to be messing with weapons, Alm- Seifer?

"This?" Seifer held up the machine, wilfully misunderstanding Zell. "This isn't a weapon, it's just a bunch of screws and stuff."

Zell pointed at the rifle. "That's a weapon."

"Zell, a _chair's_ a weapon." Seifer said, in the laboured voice used for explaining things to children and very old people.

"It's not."

"Want to try?"

Zell's eyes said _yeah, come on, just try it_, but his mouth said 'No.'

Seifer curled his lip. He extracted a piece of the firing mechanism from the Valiant and rehung the rifle, ducking as it swung back against more junk and set the whole ceiling swaying. If Zell was going to get his knickers in a twist, then let him. The room was too small for fighting, and Seifer couldn't be bothered with verbal sparring.

Zell put down the steel wool he had been using to clean his glove plates. "What do you think it used to be?" he asked, jerking his head towards Seifer's mousetrap creation.

"Hyne knows. Some kind of gun or something, I think. It used to fire these little silver things." He tossed one of the thin silvery devices he'd extracted from the machine's innards to Zell, who caught it in one hand and tuned it over in his fingers.

"Weird. Looks like staples."

Seifer tapped the logo embossed upon the side of his device with a bitten fingernail. "It's Odine brand, dumbass. He doesn't do stationery."

Zell tossed the disputed staple back to Seifer, who ducked. It bounced off the tabletop and settled into one of the piles of rubbish which littered the workshop's floor. "If you're so smart, then, what does he make?"

"Fuck knows, Dincht. Crazy magical stuff nobody else can understand."

"Yeah, but if it was a stapler, then-"

"With legs." Seifer pointed out. He pressed a button and the machine rose gangling from the tabletop as wire tendons contracted.

Zell tossed his project to the desktop. "A stapler with legs then, okay, then it'd be the kind of mad thing Odine'd make. You never met him. He's like, crazier than you."

"So maybe it used to be some kind of stapler." Seifer compromised. "I reprogrammed it."

Zell snorted, gauging Seifer's skill with computers accurately. Deft, seated in a corner working on her own project, ignored them both, as was her habit. She drew the line only at outright damage or any excess noise. Arguments were fine, as long as they were quiet ones.

"Okay, Chy reprogrammed it for me. So now it's a –"

"Lemme guess-" Zell said, sarcastically. "Some kind of weapon?"

Seifer altered the position of a wire and watched with the pride of a creator as his machine twitched one leg. "A machine. And .…it's alive!"

Zell regarded the spiked and armour-plated monstrosity with a wary eye. He reached over to tap its case and drew his hand back, startled, as the coloured LEDS edging its shell rippled into life. "What's it _do_?"

"Crawls into the air ducts, Dincht. Then it creeps into the bedrooms of people who piss me off and _then_-" he paused. "- it eats their brains."

"What does it really do?" Zell asked. He picked one of his red leather gloves from the desk and started to stitch the sanded metal plate onto the leather with a length of mantis sinew.

Seifer relented. "Fuck knows. It's just a thing. Started out as a mousetrap." He flicked the studded metal casing. "Guess I might have got a little sidetracked."

"Yeah." Zell said. "I don't think mice are a foot long with teeth like razors."

Seifer attached a piece of cheese to a long metal spring dangling over one of the machine's several mouths. "That's the bait. What do you think?"

Zell privately thought that the Garden's small and hardy population of mice should be very, very scared. "Inventive." He slipped the glove onto his hand and flexed his fingers, checking for fit. "Anyway, I've got to go."

"Yeah? What're you off to in a hurry?" Seifer said, more than a touch of jealousy creeping into his voice. He switched the machine off and stubbed out his cigarette on the desk edge.

" I've got a date." Zell said, sheepishly.

Seifer smiled like a T-Rexaur. "I thought people like you only married close relatives."

"At least I don't date my teacher." Zell snapped, then blushed. Seifer scowled. He'd had several cadets tell him he was a piece of shit since the revelation about him and their Instructor, but heaven forbid anyone should criticise Quistis to her face. Most people treated her like she'd contracted an unpleasant tropical disease. It wasn't quite a problem between them, but it was getting that way.

He pursued his line of questioning like a shark searching for blood. "Who're you seeing? Do I know her? "

"Rea. You might. She works in the library."

"Not the library girl you always had a crush on? What the hell have you been doing, Dincht?"

"Meaning?" Zell snapped. His voice had turned dangerous

"Meaning at least it hasn't taken me two years to get enough courage to ask someone out."

"Fuck you."

"Two _years_?"

Zell flipped him the bird and left, slamming the door behind him.

Seifer smirked. _Two years. It's a wonder he hasn't exploded. _

He'd turned a habit of falling asleep in class into a reputation for sleeping around, but he'd had his share of romantic and not-so romantic encounters before and after leaving Garden. Most of them he preferred not to think about, especially the one with the rash.

Seifer shook his head. He pulled a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his pocket and drew the last one out with his teeth. There was a singed box of matches lying by the side of the forge which he used to light his cigarette. He rolled the empty packet into a ball and flicked it into the forge's dying ashes.

Deft watched him. "Finished already?"

Seifer shrugged. "Thought I'd go get some fresh air." He ran a finger along his arm. It came up damp. Even with the extractor fans going full blast, the garage was always hot. Shirin had been using the forge earlier on in the day, and it showed.

Deft smiled, and relented "Guess it is a bit hot in here. If it's only fine work you're doing, take some kit home to work on. Nothing too dangerous, though. Or valuable."

"Isn't that against the rules?" Seifer said. He realised seconds after the words had left his mouth that they sounded far too cowardly and out-of-character, and clarified. "I mean, only SeeDs get to keep the stuff they find. Everyone else's supposed to hand items in to the armoury or the commissariat or shit."

"We _are_ the armoury. It's okay, as long as you don't use the items in battle. As long as whatever you build them into doesn't leave Garden."

"I'm not complaining." Seifer scanned the shelves. He picked a few items up, dinosaur bones, boxes of ammunition, a square of healing mail woven out of steel rings, replaced them and kept looking. He had exacting requirements; small, valuable items which were easy to break. The crystals were stored behind a series of large jars containing graduated sizes of preserved dragon fins and a folder full of Weapons Monthlies. Seifer selected three of the glowing stones and stuffed them into his pockets.

"Thanks."

Deft nodded.

Seifer rolled his machine into a towel and tucked it under his arm. Wrapped, its legs retracted, it was deceptively small.

He waved to Deft, who didn't look up, and walked out.

As he left the garage he passed a few Trepies leaning back against the wall and chatting. Seifer took them for hard-core machine nuts, the kind who had car magazines hidden under their mattresses instead of copies of Girl Next Door, until he heard them talking.

"So-do you reckon she's a natural blonde?"

"I always thought she was darker. There's no way you can be that blond and still have dark lashes."

Seifer listened and realised that they were fanatics of a different kind. The thought freaked him out more that he cared to admit. Quistis was damn hot, but he'd always considered the godlike awe which some of the more fanatical Trepies held her in as unnatural.

"Trust me, she is." Seifer interjected as he walked past.

"Is what?"

"Naturally blond."

"How do you know?" The kid paused. "Oh."

"How do you think?"

Seifer smirked. The encounter improved his mood no end, taking his mind off what he was about to attempt. Garden's black market was officially highly illegal and strictly small-scale.

_Hey-I'm not getting paid. Well-not much, anyway. Got to get money somehow, _he thought, then _It's Squall's fault. If he didn't make so many rules I wouldn't have to break them…_

He picked his target carefully, a skinny kid, not too studious, clutching a battered standard-issue Valiant and wearing trousers that weren't so much short weekends as whole free periods.

"Hey…you interested in any rare items?"

The cadet looked enthusiastic for a minute, then lowered his eyes. Seifer, with an experienced eye, noted that his rifle was battered and worn but scrupulously cleaned.

"I thought that was against the rules? We're supposed to hand what we find in, so the armoury can dispense what we need."

Seifer shrugged. The machine jerked spastically under his arm and he shook it carefully, hoping that it wouldn't short out, or suddenly switch on. "Yeah, I know. Always seems so mean. I bet other kids in your class can buy whatever they want from the Balamb shops, huh?"

"I guess." the cadet said, uncertainly. His nametag read Brady. "Kyle's got a Bismarck already and he's two months younger than me."

"Get a couple more of these and you can upgrade your rifle all the way up to Exeter."

Seifer said. He reached into his pocket, locating a star fragment by ease of practice. Most of the stones had a specific shape to help find the right item in a hurry. Star fragments were sharply pointed and looked like snowflakes on acid. He held the stone out, feeling lucky.

"I don't know. Everyone says the Exeters are hard to handle."

Seifer mentally recalled the standard-issue rifle upgrades. "Trade it with someone else in your class then, and you can get all the steel pipes you need."

"You haven't got anything else?"

"Nah." Seifer lied. In fact, he wasn't sure just what he had pulled from the shelves, but he didn't want the kid to get the idea that he was a kind of walking shop. Deft would notice if more than one of two crystals were 'accidentally' broken, but that should be enough to provide him with some smokes for a while. "This is strictly a first come, first served special offer. Maybe later, if this deal works out."

Brady's eyes turned the size of soup plates at the mention of _special deal_. Seifer grinned to himself. The kid was hooked. The trick was to get him to offer what he wanted.

"How much? Money? I've got five gil."

"That's nothing. It's worth five hundred."

"Twenty?"

"What'd I spend it on? Forget the credits. You got spare weapons?"

The cadet looked crestfallen. "Only this. " He held out the Valiant, and the expression on his face that told Seifer the weapon was worth much more to the kid than he'd ever pay for it.

"Maybe we can't make a deal. Got anything else?"

"I need this upgrade."

"Fine. Go fight a fucking Ruby Dragon." Seifer said. He moved his hand just enough so that the strip light overhead gleamed softly off the crystal's facets.

"Cigarettes?" The cadet didn't remove his eyes from the glowing jewel in Seifer's hand.

He shrugged. The machine didn't move. It seemed to have given up the ghost for now. "They'll do. Ten packets."

"_Ten_! No way!"

"I changed my mind. Fourteen."

"I'll have to visit the town."

"Then you get this when you've got the smokes. And for every hour I have to wait, that's another packet you owe me."

"Save it for me, then?" The cadet turned big puppy-dog eyes on him. His rifle was nearly as big as he was.

Seifer stifled a yawn. "That's the deal."

"Wait here, then. I can get some off people. Half an hour."

"Fifteen minutes."

"Just don't sell it to anybody else? Please?"

"Fourteen minutes thirty-eight seconds." Seifer said. "You better get going."

Twelve minutes later he was walking down the hallways, cartons stuffed in his pockets and rolled into his towel with the mousetrap.

Somebody with a less flexible sense of morals might have felt ashamed. Seifer didn't. Cigarettes were cheap in the cadets' prison economy, and from the look on the cadet's face as he'd walked off clutching his Valiant in one hand and the star fragment in the other, he'd just made one kid very happy indeed.

To tell the truth, it gave Seifer a buzz just to be breaking the rules again, even in such a small and petty way. It almost erased the nagging sensations of extraneousness, of not belonging, that had been eating at him since he arrived back at Garden. Like a bullet of the wrong calibre loaded into a revolver. He just didn't fit in.

But there was one person who did think he could fit in, believed it fiercely in fact, and he knew just where she'd be. Quistis had left a copy of her timetable pinned above her desk, slotted into perishing sellotape loops left over, from the look of it, from the last time she'd made Instructor.

She was scheduled for a practice session in the Training Centre. It was an area legally out of bounds for Seifer, another of Squall's rules which chafed, but his tour of Garden's behind-the-scenes areas had included a viewing gallery set discreetly above the highest palm-tree tops. He'd memorised the codes.

Five minutes later he was ensconced in a corner, sweating in the condensation and heat up near the ceiling and making inroads into his newest stock of cigarettes.

She was fighting with Xu, facing off against a pair of Grats. Seifer couldn't help admiring her skill, which spoke of hours of meticulous practice, some of it at least in front of a mirror. Had to be, to get those precise angles and turns of footwork right. He would have admired her talent even if he hated her, and as his emotions at the moment were very far from hate, it just made him unbelievably horny. The sex wasn't bad, that had never been the problem. It was the talking which was hard.

Save The Queen unrolled like a half-trained snake below him.

Seifer watched, wondering vaguely if it was possible to smoke more than one cigarette at a time.

After a while, he found that it was.

* * *

Xu met Quistis straight after her first class. "Did it go well?"

"I guess." Quistis looked down at her friend, adjusting her sight-line to make up for the five inches difference in height. "Hyne, who am I kidding? Not at all." Her hair slid down over her face and she pushed it back with a graceful flick of her wrist. "My first day, for Hynessake."

"Can't be that bad." Xu said optimistically.

"Really? The kids were cleaning out the Chocobo pens this morning. Halfway through my lesson, one of them called out to Alfie that he had, I don't know, dirt on his arm. So he bent his arm round-" she crooked her own arm to demonstrate "-looking down at it the whole time to see what was the matter. Bearing in mind he still had his practice knife in one hand."

Xu frowned. "They're not sharp."

"Sharp enough. Anyway, he stuck it up his nose."

"He what?"

Quistis sighed. She reached behind her head and shook out her hair, looping an elastic band around her wrist before scraping the blond mass back into a high ponytail. "He stuck the knife up his nose. Bled like hell. All over him, all over the floor. I got it out, sent him to Kadowaki. She stuffed a mile of bandage up his nose and proclaimed him fit for duty."

"Crazy children." Xu said in the tone of voice of somebody who dealt with SeeD cadets only rarely. "What did the doctor say?"

"Oh, she told me not to worry." Quistis said. "Last year, apparently, somebody stabbed themselves in the thigh."

"The knives are _blunt_." Xu protested.

"Yes, you would have to try quite hard, wouldn't you?" Quistis said thoughtfully.

"Like hell you would." said Xu. "Look, come to the training centre with me. It'll help you blow off some steam."

Quistis winced. She'd been hoping for a quiet night. "No kit."

"You can borrow some from the Training Centre."

"Mine is better." Quistis said. She glanced down at herself, regretting that she had that morning decided to forgo her peach training uniform for something more teacherly. You couldn't fight monsters in a white blouse, knee length skirt and modest heels.

"It can't be that bad. You're not exactly fat. It should fit."

Quistis had her doubts, but she followed Xu anyway, exhausted by the trials and tribulations of looking after a class of inexperienced twelve-year-olds for the afternoon.

Ten minutes later, as she reached the Training Centre, she found that the uniforms really _were_ that bad.

"How're you feeling?" said Xu.

Quistis pulled at her collar. "This wasn't quite what I had in mind when you mentioned spare uniforms."

"See? They're not so bad after all." Xu said enthusiastically. She looked neat and trim in a black-and gold tracksuit. Her small size made Quistis feel large and gawky.

Quistis looked down at herself. The trousers she had borrowed were an odd shade of faded blue and woven from some kind of reinforced tough material that resembled Mesmerize wool. They bagged shapelessly around her knees and finished three inches above her anklebones. She had found whilst changing a label sewn into the collar which held a short disclaimer stating that the uniform would not protect against falling three (or more) stories, injury by high velocity bullets, biological or chemical contaminants, or shark attack. Personally, she doubted whether the material would hold up to a determined Bite Bug.

She flexed her shoulders, wincing as the cheap fabric pulled at her arms. "Whoever designed these didn't consider breasts."

"Probably a man." Xu said, unsympathetically.

The training centre was quiet. Quistis ducked under a palm leaf dripping with condensation and held it up for her friend to pass. She had borrowed shoes as well, and they pinched her toes. Raising her head, she caught the growls and snarls of another battle off to their right. Other SeeDs, most likely, as classes were still in session. The noises were familiar. Quistis ignored them and unfastened her whip from her belt.

Xu drew her favourite weapons, a pair of short double-edged rapiers. They were over a foot long, either short swords or extremely long knives with ridged hilts carved from T-Rexaur bones. Quistis privately considered them strange, but then many people mocked her whip until they were on the receiving end of a few blows. Sometimes she thought they were encouraged to choose weapons that were as bizarre as possible.

She stood self-consciously in her borrowed clothes and waited for the nearest Grat to show up. Sweat ran down her neck from the humidifying machines, and she missed her own comfortable uniform, silk sandwiched with tissue-thin state-of-the art Kevlar mesh. The air smelt of mould, blood and salt.

Xu stretched. "Let's find some monsters."

It didn't take them long. Finding monsters never was much of a problem in the Training Centre.

Quistis neatly decapitated the first Grat by snapping the whip around its neck and throwing it into a tree. Xu neatly skewered its partner, and they moved on, hunting out new opponents.

Quistis fought badly, uncomfortable and self-conscious. Squall's words had planted a seed of doubt in her mind. Before she'd walked into the office, she'd only felt guilty about betraying Garden. After she'd left, she felt guilty about enjoying herself at all. _Typical damn Squall._

_Maybe I should have been stronger. Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do._

Xu didn't seem to notice. She was enjoying herself. She picked up Quistis' slack and more, cutting the monsters to pieces with relish. Five more Grats and two Bombs experienced temporary feelings of shock and awe before exploding. Green Grat blood, Bomb sulphur and unnamed bodily fluids spattered across Quistis's uniform, leaving a single plant/monster hybrid sitting like a toad in the middle of the clearing. She felt a tiny weakening as the monster drained away her stamina.

_Concentrate, damn you. Even Grats can kill._

Quistis sighted with her right thumb onto the target before following through with an overarm swipe. The chain clinked and the tip of the whip snapped right in the nearest Grat's eye. It screamed and snapped its tentacles around. Xu dashed in under Quistis's long range cover and slashed through its flabby body. Quistis loaded the whip again for another strike, a low slash designed to pick up gravel from the training centre's floor and aim it through the air, and the Grat collapsed. Its tentacles slumped drunkenly, slapping onto the dusty ground with a noise like the hides of a pedigree herd being thrown over a cliff. Xu rested one knee on the monster's garlic-shaped body and thrust one hand deep into its already-liquiescing carcass. Sweat dripped from her forehead to mingle with the corpse's juices.

Quistis leant against a palm tree, wiping sweat from her own forehead and temples with the back of one gloved hand. "Found anything much?"

Xu withdrew her hand, gory to the elbow. "One silence powder." She trickled the gleaming sandlike crystals into a leather bag clipped to her belt. "I think that's enough for today. The cadets finish classes soon. This place'll be packed out."

"I agree." Quistis said. She rolled her head back on her neck, feeling tenseness in her shoulders.

Xu clipped her beltpouch shut and wiped her hands on her shirt, leaving streaks of green Grat blood. "You've been quiet."

Quistis sighed. "My first class didn't exactly go well." She concentrated on folding her whip into perfect geometric circles, coil wrapping sinuously around coil.

"How's that up-to-no-good boyfriend of yours? Is he taking care of you?"

"Seifer seems to be getting on okay." Quistis said noncommittally, trying to keep even the slightest hint of pride out of her voice. She set her palm to the heavy moss-encrusted doors of the Training Centre and levered them open, Save The Queen looped around her forearm.

Xu dropped the powder into a small recess set just outside the centre's gates. "I heard five'll get you ten that he'll be out by the end of the summer. Come on, engineering. As if he'll stick with that for more than a few weeks."

I thought you said we weren't going to talk about this." Quistis said. She wiped her moss-streaked hands on her borrowed coveralls, secure in the knowledge that the stains couldn't make them look any worse.

Xu sighed. "Sometimes, things just have to be said. Look, he's making love to my best friend, guns with the mechanics, and trouble for Garden, but the only thing he's not making is amends. So far I have seen a sum total of absolutely zero repentance."

"Xu, I-"

Xu held up a hand with a squeak of black leather. "That's it. I'm shutting up."

They made their way back to the changing rooms in silence.

Quistis thought about that as she ducked her head under the always-too-cold shower jets, rinsing the Grat blood from her face. It was true that she didn't talk about Seifer much, trammelled by Garden opinion, but she thought about him a lot. And hearing Xu talking about him in that casual offhand voice annoyed her.

She'd visited him once in the garage area, where she watched his hands running over the metal, rough broad hands with pale scars and nails bitten down to the quick. They moved quickly, seemingly independently, fixing and discarding items, solving problems which would have baffled the man himself. Despite his seeming immersion in the world of the mechanics and their problems, she could tell he was far from content. She'd wake up nights to find him balanced on the windowsill, smoking his lungs into oblivion with his seemingly inexhaustible packets of cigarettes, denying anyone the privilege of doing him in by killing himself first. She had long since passed the stage of wondering where he got them from. They just seemed to materialise. Neither of them were getting much sleep.

_He'll get used to it. At least he's back, and Garden really is the best place for him. I'm sure of that._

She made a mental note to talk to Squall, call in some favours and see whether or not he could assign Seifer something more appropriate. It was a waste, she thought. Seifer was an indifferent engineer, but a talented swordsman. Squall hated waste. Seifer would hate it if he knew, but he didn't have to.

She leant back in the shower and washed clinging soapsuds from her long pale hair.

* * *

_Three days later….._

Quistis leant back in her office chair, resting her fist on her chin. She flipped a desk ornament upside down with her free hand and gave Zell her most charming smile.

"He doesn't mind you, you know."

Zell perched on the back of a mass-issue SeeD plastic chair, the soles of his trainers resting on the seat. His forearms and shins were bronzed from hours of summer classes, and there were dark circles of sweat under the arms of his t-shirt. Quistis had called him in after a morning of lessons. She had picked her moment carefully.

Zell snagged a tissue from a box on Quistis's desk and wiped his face. "I guess the constant put-downs and humiliation was just his way of showing it." He smiled, fast and brief as summer lightning.

Quistis watched the executive toy's drifting fuschia globes. "Do this for me."

Zell threw the crumpled tissue into an overflowing waste paper basket under Irvine's desk. "Why?"

"To show there are no hard feelings." Quistis said. She toyed with a pen and looked Zell in the eye over the top of her rimless glasses.

"But there are hard feelings." Zell said. "Lots."

"You'll pick up a few extra teaching credits."

"I don't need money that badly." Zell shifted his feet, leaving dusty footprints on the chair's padded seat. "Why me?"

"You're a good teacher." Quistis said. "And you owe me."

Zell frowned. He ran a hand through his hair, unconsciously straightening his shoulders. "Nope. Uh, no. "

Quistis raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. Zell's voice became more hesitant.

"That was _his_ fault as well, you know."

Quistis slid a white envelope across the table towards him. "Squall assigned you." She smiled sweetly. "You can cope. Think as it as an honour."

Zell groaned.

It was lunchtime before she got the chance to mention her idea to Seifer. He was in the canteen, sitting with a couple of the other engineers. They made their excuses as she approached, with smiles and apologies, and left them both alone. His hands were stained with a mixture of oil and nicotine, and there was a corresponding dark streak in his cropped hair where he'd run his hands through it.

As with Zell, she started softly, leading onto the conversation in a roundabout way. She was pretty sure that she could out-think Seifer at the best of times. If life was an exam, Quistis had started revising two terms before. Seifer had pulled an all-nighter the day before, taken a bunch of caffeine pills and still failed.

"I think you need some self-defence lessons."

Seifer frowned. He had already finished eating, now he dropped his fork onto his paper plate and pushed them both away. "Like hell I do."

Quistis tried to explain. "The best "self-defence" when you are surrounded by a hundred million people of some other culture is to avoid dangerous places and figure out some way to get along with the folks around you. This is the kind you are really, really, bad at. You could also do with learning something other than the gunblade."

Seifer frowned. His eyebrows, far too dark with someone with pale hair, met. "Who'll teach me all this?"

Quistis crossed her fingers under the table. "Zell."

"He's an idiot!"

Quistis refrained from smiling, her tone unimpressed. She wiped an imaginary stain from her long gloves. "So you both have at least one thing in common. I've arranged for him to teach you. It'll be good practice."

She had expected an outright rebuttal, had been prepared for at least an-half-hour of arguing before Seifer finally caved. Instead he looked thoughtful, fiddling with his watchstrap. Quistis glimpsed a strip of paler, less grimy skin underneath.

"So it'll be just me and him?"

"Yes." Quistis said.

"Alone?"

"Yes." she said, and added, hurriedly "But just practicing."

"Sure."

"You're not allowed to hurt each other, you know." Quistis said. Years of acquaintance had given her an insight into how Seifer's mind worked a clear eighty per cent of the time. The remainder was anyone's guess. "I'm sponsoring you for this. If either of you get into trouble, my neck'll be on the line."

"Yeah, sure." Seifer grinned. "Tell him I said yes." He leant over and kissed her, leaving her with a lingering scent of grease and sawdust.

Quistis sent a brief prayer to Hyne on Zell's behalf and composed her features with an effort.

At the next table, Selphie let her fork fall. "Zell's teaching Seifer? They'll kill each other!" She looked at her dining partner.

"Yes. But on the bright side, we won't have to deal with Almasy any more." Xu said sourly.

* * *

Seifer wandered into the gymnasium thirty minutes late. He was pleased to see that the sand-floored school was empty, save for a couple of rickety spectator's chairs, a few spare training weapons and the inerasable aroma of socks. He'd been late on purpose; not because he had anything better to do, but because he'd hoped Zell would have given up and gone.

Apparently he'd been right.

Seifer smiled and turned on his heel. His boots left a cross-hatched print in the fresh sand.

"Almasy? Where are you going?"

Seifer cursed.

Zell stood in the doorway, the crest of his hair brushing the low door-frame. As usual, his hairstyle looked as if it would walk away of its own accord if you stood him on his head.

He threw a roll of bandage at Seifer. It hit him about chest height, and bounced. A second one followed it, striking Seifer squarely on the head as he bent down to pick up the first bundle.

"Oh, fuck off, Dincht. You think you're so clever." Seifer snarled. He straightened, stuffing the rolls of fabric into his pockets and wondering how the hell Quistis had managed to talk him into taking lessons from Zell.

"And you don't?"

"Date go well?" Seifer countered.

"Mind your own business." Zell said. He blushed, then seemed to regain at least some of his composure. "Put your hand wraps on."

Seifer pulled the bandages from his pocket. He held the free ends between his fingers and let the bandage unroll itself, searching out the loops sewn into each end for his thumb. "You any good?" he said contemptuously as he twisted the bandage in figures-of-eight around his wrist and knuckles, got it hopelessly tangled, and tried again before he gave up and just fastened the Velcro around.

"Best boxer in Balamb." Zell said. He sounded slightly uneasy. He had already finished wrapping his own hands, a professional, neat job that looked better than anything Seifer was able to manage. It had been a long time since he'd fought in an organised fashion with anything other than Hyperion. "There was this one time we found a Hexadragon in the Grandidi forest. Quistis softened him up, then I finished him in two blows-kapow! You should've seen her, Seifer. She's one hell of a fighter."

Seifer found that he didn't much like the idea of Quistis fighting with Zell. Maybe it was the idea of someone who he trusted working happily with someone he didn't, quite. Maybe it was the protectiveness that he swore to her he didn't feel. Or maybe it was Selphie's famous fighting –equals-sex analogy.

Whatever.

He brushed the comment off. "Don't see the point of boxing, myself. Waste of fucking time."

"It isn't."

"Unarmed combat's outdated. That's why we have _guns_."

Zell glowered. He wiped his hands down his T shirt, testing the security of his wraps, then moved out into the room.

The gymnasium wasn't large. It was panelled in dark wood, lit by several tiny windows high up in the wall and fierce neon strip lights which made Seifer itch behind his shoulderblades. Several of the panels were broken, the products of overenthusiastic blows by former students. Zell moved over to the centre of the room and began to drag the toe of his trainer in a rough circle, his posture straightening as he moved away from Seifer.

Seifer could tell that he was trying his best to regain his own Instructor's composure.

He didn't mind. He was planning for a fight, a big one, and breaking through Zell's two-year veneer of restraint was just so much damn fun.

He grinned. "So what, now?"

"I thought we'd try some sparring." Zell said noncommittally. "See how good you are." He looked up from the sand, circle completed. "You okay with that?"

"Suits me fine."

"The magic rules are: one, don't step outside the circle, and two, at least try to hit me."

"What do you mean, _try_?" Seifer snapped, only mildly insulted. He was planning to land at least something on Zell, a small and petty revenge for drawing attention to Seifer and Quistis's relationship a few days ago. It was always easy for tempers to flare inside a duelling ring, for things to go just a bit too far.

"Three: no dirty fighting." Zell said. "Just fists."

Seifer smirked. "No GF's, then?"

Zell blushed, hotly. "No."

"'Cause that's not really fair, me unjunctioned and all." Seifer said casually, watching Zell squirm. He stepped inside the circle. It was surprisingly small, only double the size of a large dining table. The wraps felt unfamiliar around his hands, and he wondered if he'd tied them too tightly. He tried to remember the few first-year lessons he'd attended on bare-fist fighting, and failed. He wanted his gloves back.

Zell squared up, feet eighteen inches apart at a text-book angle. He looked up at Seifer below one raised eyebrow, his chin neatly tucked in." We gonna start?"

Seifer mimicked Zell's stance. "Yeah."

They started off slowly, jab/block, straight right/block, left hook/block, moving faster as Seifer found his balance. He was trying to remember the proper way to punch, and by Zell's expression, he wasn't doing great. But Zell was a good teacher, or at least he was trying, and Seifer almost forgot his plan.

He lashed out again, aiming for a square blow on Zell's chin. His opponent pivoted on the ball of his foot, smartly avoiding the blow.

"Wow, I can see what Quistis said. You need more practice."

"I managed fine before." Seifer snarled. The smell of scuffed sawdust was strong.

"That's because you weren't fighting professionals." Zell said, not at all scornfully. "You were punching people who didn't know what to look for."

_No_. Seifer thought. _I was fighting people who didn't just throw punches_. Bottles, pool cues, smaller patrons, stools, waitresses-all were fair weapons.

"You're too open." Zell pursued. "You're like, telegraphing your signals."

"Telegraph this." Seifer said, and hit him. He missed, of course, which didn't make him feel any better.

Zell pointed at him with one finger while fending Seifer off easily with the other hand. "You dip your shoulder before you punch. And you don't get close enough."

Seifer tried a jab, followed by a right straight punch which would have had Zell kissing the mat should it have landed. Which, he guessed, was about as much action as Dincht had seen last night. The little library girl didn't look the type to easily put out. Zell would have to buy her a few more bunches of flowers if he wanted to get lucky.

Even though Seifer had tried his best to keep his shoulders level, Zell blocked his first blow and easily dodged the second. He threw a punch of his own. Seifer caught it on his arm. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, then wished he hadn't as his hand wraps became instantly clammy and damp.

"See?" Zell demonstrated. "I press forwards and you step back. This isn't duelling. You have to get right up to people to hit them."

Seifer realised that he was drawing away, trying to get enough room for a sword-slash. His heel brushed the edge of the circle. Zell pointed, and he hastily stepped back in, feeling insulted. His knuckles felt bruised from repeated contact with the edge of Zell's forearms.

Things weren't going the way Seifer had planned at all, so he fell back on a skill he knew he was better at than Zell. Insults.

"Anyone who runs up to monsters and _hits_ them's got to have a screw loose."

Zell bristled. "It's braver than hiding behind a sword." He blocked Seifer's blows, regular as a metronome, then punched again, stopping an inch from Seifer's chin. The concession hurt worse than any bruise.

"Yeah?" Seifer grinned like a Marlboro. "Like Leonhart does?"

Zell's eyes narrowed. "He's worth _ten_ of you."

"Doubt that, fucker."

"He is, you bastard!"

Seifer let this one slide. He had absolutely no idea whether or not his parents had bothered to wed, and cared less. He was pretty sure that Zell's real parents were in the same boat.

Zell visibly regained his cool, with an effort. He caught Seifer's uppercut with the heel of his hand, throwing him off balance, then didn't take the opening this afforded him.

Seifer swore again, out of habit, and watched Dincht glance around the deserted gym, just in case there were any sensitive cadets around. There weren't. He scrubbed at his face again, wiping sweat off with already-saturated gloves. His wrists ached.

Zell lowered his fists. "Maybe we should take a break."

"Don't think so."

"I think-"

"Hey, Zell?"

"Yeah?"

"Keep going." Seifer taunted. "I'll autograph your fucking face for you!"

"Like you did Squall?" Zell snapped back. He was finally responding to Seifer's insults. Fatally, he dropped his guard. It was fair enough, they were well over the usual three-minute sparring rounds, but Quistis would have warned him that it wasn't a good idea to present an opening to Seifer when he was in a nasty mood. He wiped his hands across his T-shirt and pointed to the scar on Seifer's face. "Or like he did you?"

"None of your damn business." Seifer snarled. He slammed the heel of his palm into Zell's nose and nearly broke his wrist.

Zell choked. One hand went to his nose, smearing blood all over the place.

It didn't look broken, Seifer thought, but there was the possibility that either he had punched harder than he thought or Zell's nose was much more fragile. An interesting problem.

He flicked his hand a few times, checking for cracking or grating in the joint, but it just felt bruised. The ache was nothing against the warm feeling of satisfaction he had from scoring revenge on Zell. Behind him, Dincht gurgled something which sounded like'-_my face_."

Seifer turned away, reaching for the Velcro fastenings on his wraps. "Good job your mother can sew, Zell. Hell, tell you what, bet you'll never score with that little library girl now. You should thank me, 'cause she'd just have dumped you anyway... "

He had forgotten that Zell was never as fierce as in defence of his friends.

Two seconds later their fight had gotten a whole lot more interesting and Seifer was flat on his back in the sand. The back of his legs burned from where Zell had kicked him in the knees to bring him down, but his body wasn't bruised as much as his pride. Zell stood over him, one hand to his leaking nose.

Seifer pointed at his opponent's sneakered feet from his prone position. "Hell, you stepped outside the circle."

"Apologise!" Zell snapped. His voice was thick, and he tilted his head back, looking down at Seifer for once.

"You must be fucking cra-"

"APOLOGISE." Zell shouted. He reached down to grab Seifer by the collar of his shirt, and yanked his head up. Seifer considered his options. Zell's nose dripped dark venous blood onto his face.

"Dincht, that's gross. I might catch something."

"Apologise." Zell said quietly.

Seifer tilted his head, feeling a faint tickling sensation as Zell's blood ran down his cheekbone and onto the sand. "Or what? I don't think you've got the guts."

Zell hit him, gently. "Say you're sorry."

Seifer considered telling him that it was against his personal code of conduct to apologise to anyone apart from Quistis, and that rarely. He decided against it, feeling sore.

_Zell'll get into a whole lot of trouble, but unfortunately no one's bothering, story of my life_, Seifer thought as he moved, rolling back on his shoulders. The back of his skull hit the yielding sand-and-sawdust floor and Zell took one step forwards to keep his balance, stepping over Seifer as he did so. Seifer brought his knees up to his chest and kicked upward. It was an almost perfect shot.

There was a groan.

Zell went white. He let go of Seifer's T-shirt to clutch at himself. Seifer kicked out one leg from under him, rolled away as Zell hit the floor with a gasp and stumbled to his feet, booting Zell in the head once as he did so. He stepped back and collapsed onto the sand, hacking up a twenty-a-day cough from the fetid depths of his lungs.

Zell didn't move. He seemed suspiciously still for somebody who had just been kicked in the testicles. Seifer poked him with the toe of his steel-capped boot.

"Zell?"

No reply.

"Shit."

Five minutes later, having confirmed that Zell was in fact still alive, Seifer considered his options. He didn't quite have the balls to saunter out into the courtyard with an unconscious Zell Dincht slung over his shoulders. It was a pity, but there it was. He needed help, and Zell needed a medic. Seifer was inexperienced in medicine, but conscious people usually moved more. He sat back on his heels in the blood-flecked sand and mentally compiled a list of friends with apartments near the gyms who would be willing to help. It was exactly one name long.

She'd be in. She was usually in.

He slung Zell's arm over his shoulder and, after consideration, wiped the worst of the blood from the small fighter's face with the hem of his T-shirt. A few minutes stagger brought him to Fuujin's door.

She opened it with a mistrustful one-eyed glare, then brightened, ignoring the apparent corpse on his shoulder. "SEIFER? SURPRISE, PLEASANT. TEA?"

Seifer dismissed the question. "Fuu. Glad to see you. I need a hand. Shit. I think I killed Zell."

Fuujin looked Zell over, her hands on the hips of her blue brocade jacket. "STILL BREATHING?"

Seifer poked the duellist, who didn't move. "He might be." He considered. "Well, he _was_."

Fuujin raised a plucked silver eyebrow. "WANT HELP? BURY BODY?"

Seifer shifted Zell's weight and caught him as the small martial artist began to slither to the ground. "I'm not joking, Fuu."

"ME, NEITHER." Fuujin said pointedly.

"No. Look, I need help. I've got to carry him to the infirmary. He's too damn heavy to manage alone."

Fuujin furrowed her brow with an expression of ferocious thoughtfulness. "REALLY? HURT ZELL?"

"Yeah. I did."

"TROUBLE."

"Tell me about it." Seifer said.

She agreed to help him, of course, thankfully before Seifer's legs gave out. As they staggered together along dust shrouded dry maintenance corridors, Seifer pointing out the fastest way, he was sure he could have turned up at her door saying '_Dammit, I killed somebody. Fuujin- fetch a shovel'_, and she would have. Kind of scary, that level of loyalty. Real friends..

"ACCIDENT?" she said.

"Not exactly."

Fuujin shrugged and almost dropped Zell. She winced and shifted position. Seifer felt her arm against his, feeling thin strong bird-bones under summer weight embroidered silk brocade.

"REVENGE?"

"Yeah." Seifer hooked Zell's arm over his shoulders, pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and took a fresh cigarette between his teeth.

"FOR THE GFS?" Fuujin asked pointedly. "FOR QUISTIS?"

"I guess." Seifer said. It freaked him out, sometimes, the way Fuujin was able to interpret his moods. Quistis was the only one who even came close.

"GROW UP. CAN'T HAVE REVENGE EVERY TIME."

"Suppose not." Seifer said. He ignited his cigarette, then, feeling guilty, shifted more of Zell's weight off Fuujin.

"FELT GOOD?" she asked.

"Hell yeah." Seifer said.

Fuujin smiled and said not another word until they reached the infirmary.

Kadowaki received them with a long-suffering sigh and her usually effortless efficiency. She took the cigarette from Seifer's mouth as soon as he walked in the door, and arranged Zell on a bed while asking a series of exacting questions about the circumstances of, as Seifer said, his 'accident.'

He was fairly sure he'd gotten away with it until he turned to walk away. Fuujin was long gone, disappeared to her classes or lessons or whatever she did when she wasn't working.

The doctor stopped Seifer with one chunky white-coated arm. "Where", she asked, "are you going?"

Seifer pushed her arm aside. "Out."

Kadowaki moved to bar the door. "No, you're not. You're going to stay right here until he wakes up."

"What if he doesn't?" Seifer asked.

"Then you're not leaving."

Seifer sighed and settled himself in an uncomfortable chair in the bare little room. Machines beeped and whirred around him, pumping suspicious liquids through plastic tubes. There was one other patient, a twelve –year old rookie cadet with a wan smile and a heavy padded bandage covering half of his face.

Kadowaki looked up, finished doing something mysteriously medical over Zell's prone corpse. "You're lucky. I think it's just concussion."

Seifer pretended that he didn't feel relieved. He'd only meant to score a point on Zell, not kill him. "So I can go?"

"No." the doctor said, then went on with her work. She thumbed Zell's eyes open and scowled at the state of his nose.

Seifer shifted in his uncomfortable chair and settled himself in for a long wait. It didn't look as if Zell was waking up any time soon. He was bored, and tired of getting put in his place by older women. It would be all right, he supposed, if he was into that kind of thing. He wasn't.

Zell woke up, eventually.

* * *

Seifer waited until the evening to tell Quistis, figuring he better get it over with. There wasn't any way to make the circumstances sound good, so he didn't even try. They were both sitting on her bed. She looked tired. Seifer would have waited until the morning, or at least after sex, when she was in a better mood, but she'd asked him where he'd been all the afternoon, how his first lesson went.

"I put Zell in the infirmary."

Quistis looked appropriately horrified. "You what? Hyne, Is he all right?"

Seifer related what had happened, finishing with the words "It was a fair fight."

He knew himself to be a supremely dirty fighter, acting on the 'whatever works' principle, but most of the duel had been fair, even if it had been by dint of Zell's restraint.

"Kicking someone while they're down isn't a fair fight." Quistis pointed out.

"It was." Seifer protested. "He could of done it, too. It's not my fault he's too much of a pussy."

Quistis yawned. Her hair was damp, and honey-dark. Seifer had to stop himself from reaching out and touching it, running the strands between his fingers. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. "You've got to fight fairly."

Seifer felt indignant, remembering his previous fight with Zell and the fury of Quetzalcoatl. "SeeDs don't fight fairly. None of you lot do."

Quistis glanced up, sharply. "What do you mean by that?"

"The GFs. You all do it." Seifer said. "I've seen you."

"So?" Quistis almost snapped. She refused to look at him. Her elbows rested on her knees, her hands dangling limply down between her thighs. When Quistis was reduced to using monosyllables, everyone was in trouble.

Seifer sprawled back on Quistis's clean sheets. "So, I thought you were smart."

It's always foolish to refuse anything which gives you an advantage." Quistis looked up, her blue eyes stonecold, her voice level. Seifer refused to let the subject drop. It had always been a sore point between them, Seifer adamantly determined to have anything to do with the guardian forces, Quistis rarely without one junctioned.

"Yeah. The only thing is that they don't."

"They do." Quistis folded her arms, flat muscles moving under her white vest. Her blouse was down around her shoulders, half-unbuttoned. "GFs are more powerful than weapons and battle magic combined."

"If you're in a group, sure." Seifer shrugged. He rubbed the knuckles of each hand against his palms, alleviating bruises. "Shit, I learned that. Only thing is, if you're by yourself they're too slow. You need backup to cover while you summon."

"The speed all depends on the GF." Quistis said. She chopped a hand through the air. "Shiva's fast for me."

"You still need backup, though." said Seifer. "Only reason I beat Zell in the Quad was 'cause he summoned. If he'd just kept punching, he'd have won."

"In formation, they're the best techniques available." Quistis pointed out. "We've got a moral duty to use the most advanced tools we have. Since the Lunar Cry, the monsters are worse. Some of the things I've seen-well, just take my word for it, you go in with all guns blazing and use everything you've got to get those monsters out of there as fast as possible." She played with her hair, twisting the chopped ends around her fingers with what Seifer interpreted as growing irritation. He pressed on, too wound up to ignore her exhaustion.

"Guns don't live in your head. Hell, all that shit you're always giving me about smoking-at least cigarettes don't make you lose your mind."

Quistis tipped her head at her neatly stacked bookshelves. "That's never been proven." Her voice was calm and controlled, with an edge of coldness.

"Only 'cause we've only been using GFs for ..what, five years? Ten? Do the maths. Nobody fucking knows."

"There's no evidence." Quistis said.

"It's not just the memory thing. They make you weak." Seifer said. He flopped backwards onto the bed, throwing one arm across his face. "You all rely on them too much."

Quistis shifted backwards onto the mattress. She took hold of Seifer's arm and lifted it from his face. "They get us contracts. Trabia and Galbadia don't have GFs. Person for person, Balamb's a more effective fighting force- and we proved that in the wars."

"Maybe they're the sensible ones." Seifer said. "But stealing contracts from the other Gardens just makes them pissed with Balamb."

"So they're the ones spreading these absurd rumours." Quistis said, irritated. "Besides, it wasn't the GFs which annoyed Galbadia. It was you."

"Whatever." said Seifer. "If they were just things I'd have no problem using them. But they're like people."

"Not _exactly_ like people."

"So what the hell are they?"

Quistis dodged his question like bullets "I don't really know, okay, Seifer? Nobody knows right now, not Odine, not Cid, not anybody. But we use them because we need them. SeeD protects people. That's our job. And if using GFs is what it takes to protect people, then I think we've got a moral right to use them. If it can save one person's life, then we should. You always said we'd be dead by the time we were thirty, so what does it matter?" Her shoulders slumped, her voice hopeless. "It doesn't."

Seifer sat up, suddenly alert. His voice was almost concerned.

"You all right?"

He noticed how tired she looked for the first time, worn out, pale, the frames of her glasses hiding dark rings around her eyes. Quistis's inner shell had shown a crack. She so rarely let her guard down, even with him, sometimes, especially with him.

She smiled, wanly. "It's been a long day."

Seifer frowned, dark eyebrows meeting. "I bet." He looped an arm around her waist and pulled her down with him, settling closer on the mattress. Her hipbones dug into him. She'd grown so thin, he thought, and cursed himself for not noticing sooner. Quistis had always been slender, but she looked downright ill.

"I'm fine."

Seifer believed her. Sort of. He showered and crawled in with her, holding her closely until she relaxed into sleep and her problems were erased from his brain by something more familiar.

Seifer sighed.

He moved even closer to Quistis, who shifted, her breathing becoming shallower, then deepening. The room air was dry on his skin, warm cotton, some kind of silk underwear she was wearing and Quistis' long limbs pressing against him.

_Damn it. Time to get it over with. Again._

Seifer closed his eyes and raised the curtain on another nightmare. Feeding Rinoa To Ultimecia, he thought. Or maybe, Being Manipulated by Evil Sorceresses, or his very favourite, Trying To Kill My Childhood Friends, parts I-VIII, all-singing, all-dancing, and in glorious Technicolour.

He shifted, thinking _bring it on_, even as he fell asleep. He was used to nightmares.

This one was different.

_The landscape is thickly forested, blotched with white patches of snow. The air is unpolluted, clear, thin and bitterly cold. It whistles round the treetrunks, uninterrupted save for the odd remote village or mountain refuge hut. _

_Seifer shivers._

_The huts are the only things which have saved him. The Galbadian army have made sure to check each one, which has slowed down their progress considerably._

_Until now._

_Seifer shades his eyes against the midday sun with the flat of a knife blade. The day is bright, the sky a flawless cerulean blue, in sharp contrast to the snow which dapples the forest floor. The sun brushes the treetops and shines into his eyes. It isn't the best position for an attack, but he hasn't a lot of choice in the matter and the outcrop of windscarred grey granite at his back is the best place Seifer has found for an ambush. He just has to hope that the soldier following him hadn't also realised this fact. _

_He shifts his weight from one foot to another, boots silent in the inch-thick layer of snow. The soles of his feet ache from walking, though they are numbed slightly from the biting cold of this late Trabian autumn. It makes his breath smoke and his body shiver._

_He freezes._

_There is a grating, slipping noise from off to his left as the Galbadian soldier tracking him makes his way cautiously down the defile. The scree is treacherous. Seifer has passed that way five minutes earlier, and he knows exactly how hard it is to remain silent among the shifting rocks and pebbles. The noise of rattling stones is cut with long silences as the soldier pauses, listening._

_Seifer slips the knife into his belt for a second, moving slowly and carefully to avoid the skewering of any important parts. He checks the gun in his right hand, then takes up the knife again. Bone shows hard through skin as his finger tightens on the trigger. He counts slowly under his breath. A bird squawks in the bushes and takes flight in a rattle of wingbeats. Under the cover of the noise his opponent advances two scraping paces, then stops again. _

_The wind rushes through the treetops. There are no other manmade sounds._

_They could be the only two men for miles, were it not for the group of armed soldiers that follows the Galbadian scout. They are at least fifty miles from any sizeable place of habitation, miles and miles of monster-infested second-growth pine forest away from civilisation._

_Seifer grins to himself, head down, listening. He slides a step back, settles his body more firmly against the undercut base of the cliff. He lowers the knife from his eyes, moving smoothly, and settles one booted heel against the rockface._

_Pebbles grate. The soldier he can't yet see takes three quick steps, riding a wave of scree. Seifer pushes off with his boot and bolts out into the open. Adrenaline fires his veins and stopped him shivering. _

_The Galbadian raises his rifle to his shoulder. Surprise is written clearly on his face, maybe he isn't expecting his opponent to do anything quite so stupid, but he is well-trained._

_Seifer fights his way across the scree, finding purchase for his feet with difficulty, straights his arm and shoots the soldier. Unfortunately, the wound isn't anything like incapacitating. Seifer's pistol is erratic at best and nearly useless at this close range. The soldier swears and pulls the trigger of his own gun. The blast sends a flock of birds quivering up into the sky and deafens Seifer for a second. A load of snow falls with a thump from the branches of the nearest pine trees. _

_The gun kicks back into the Galbadian's shoulder and his boots skid for purchase on the loose scree. Seifer reaches him, ducks under the rifle barrel as it swings in his direction, and dodges behind the man's back. The soldier drops his long-range rifle to clutch at his own short sword. _

_Seifer switches hands, sinks the knife in deeply under his opponent's left armpit and twists the blade as hot blood soaks his right hand. Grey plumes of steam erupt from the vivid liquid. Seifer lets the body fall. He collapses onto his heels himself and looks at the corpse, waiting for a movement that doesn't come, and eventually relaxes slightly._

_Dead, the Galbadian looks smaller, and awkward. His eyes are blue, and wide open. A scarf shrouds the lower part of his face against the cold, a thick non-regulation sheepskin jacket covers his blue-and-silver uniform. Seifer rolls the body over and wrestles the man's arms out of the sleeves, inspecting the garment critically. He has had very little time to pack, and few warm clothes to bring with him. The dead soldier doesn't need his jacket any more, and it is in fairly good condition, considering. There is a ragged hole in the left hand armpit, and a bloody trail running from the left armpit to the waist length hem. _

_Seifer measures the size against his arms, then tries the jacket on over his several layers of too-thin clothing. It is only slightly too small, tight under the arms, but very warm. He needs the warmth The snow has gotten thicker the last few days, moving from odd flakes in the air to inch-high drifts in the shady lee of tree trunks. Soon it will be full winter, and he will be in even more trouble._

_He picks up the dead man's rifle and checks the cartridges. They are the wrong size for his small gun, and he is loath to burden himself with the heavy rifle, being an indifferent marksman at best. Finally, he settles with throwing the rifle and handfuls of shot up onto one of the cliff ledges, where he hopes they will be invisible to any other scouting parties. The knife he slips into his rucksack._

_The body lies where it has fallen, sprawled untidily among the stones. Seifer kneels beside it. He grabs a handful of snow and wipes his hands and knife clean, finding even that small movement an effort. Exhaustion drags at him, pulling him down. He rocks back on his heels for a moment to bury his frozen hands in the armpits of his newly acquired jacket. Head down, he closes his eyes and crouches uncomfortably, his boots half-sunk in frost until a real or imagined sound brings him alert again after maybe a minute's worth of self-indulgence. _

_Seifer shakes his head to clear it and reaches for the fallen corpse, yanking the scarf up to cover its still-open eyes in a last gesture of respect. Five minutes butcher work is all it takes to open a rent from throat to pelvis, ripping the body open for the monsters to have their fill. With luck, monsters will find the fresh meat within a few minutes and the Galbadians will assume that their comrade had been unlucky enough to fall foul of creatures. And if they don't, there isn't a damn thing he can do about it._

_Seifer shrugs. He stands, the knees of his trousers now sodden with blood and melting snow. The air smells of blood, shit and pine needles. The wind whips at his clothes, numbing his fingers again. He wipes his knife on the dead man's jacket and replaces it in the sheath on his belt. It feels like there is nobody around for miles, just the monsters and the hunters and him and the cold, too stubborn to give in or die._

_Blood pools in the snow below him, running in the silhouettes of footprints and landscaped channels. It seems entirely too red for something which should have clotted and frozen ten minutes ago, Seifer thinks. Too bright, and too lively. He hunkers down in the snow to get a better look._

_Viscous red liquid runs slowly towards his boots before settling in the furrows and pits on the surface of the snow, swirling gently. It leaves no sign of its passing and the cruciform shape of the pool is familiar. A fire cross. _

_Seifer shakes his head. _

_Can't be. It didn't happen like this. I should know. I was there._

_It feels strangely like somebody is trying to communicate with him and going entirely the wrong way about it._

_He raises his head, one hand nearly brushing the surface of the puddle behind frayed coat sleeves. Looking up, he notices that the blood from the soldier's body is slowly seeping away, the splashes and streaks disappearing as if erased. He sits back on his heels and moves away, circling the vanishing marks in a wide ellipse. He feels uneasy. Things aren't going the way they usually do, even in dreams. Everything seems too vivid. Detailed._

_When he is standing alone in the centre of a perfectly white landscape, featureless save for the soldier's corpse, the second strange thing happens. The trees begin to fall._

_Seifer has spent some time in Timber and so he knows how trees were supposed to fall. The pine forest around him just collapses, disappearing, black silhouettes dark against the snow for a second before vanishing. They leave no pine needles or inconvenient squirrels or dead branches behind. They simply disappear. _

Seifer watches the almost-familiar landscape grow suddenly surreal. Luckily, he is so unnerved by this that it takes him a long time to notice the dead soldier was moving beneath the scarf. He watches wearily as the corpse sits upright, moving slowly and woodenly, and tugs the scarf from its, no, her face.

_It is Edea, and somehow that doesn't surprise him at all. The scarf catches on her asymmetrical headdress and she pulls it away. She is dressed the same as she was the last time he'd saw her, in a black dress with a ruff of black feathers round the neckline. Each pin and brooch and earring is just as he remembers it. He has taken them off, half a world away and a long time ago._

_Her purple lips-and surely that can't be healthy, maybe it has something to do with the snow- mouth two words. The glittery paint daubed around her eyes catches the light._

_Seifer kneels in the snow beside her and tries not to notice the suggestion of ripped flesh behind her gown._

_Edea frowns delicately, whispers one more word and vanishes as surely as the blood and forest before her. Seifer doesn't hear that one, either. He looks around and sees only white snow, perfect and clean. There is no suggestion of any landscape remaining now, familiar or unfamiliar. The sky is inky black, and unnatural. A few seconds later, black flakes begin to drift silently down from above his head. At first, Seifer mistakes them for ashes, then as he brushes them from his shoulders with quick impatient movements he realises that they are feathers, tiny down-edged feathers, each pinion perfect and individual. They remind him of Rinoa and Edea both._

_He looks up. Nothing._

_The cold returns in full force._

_Black feathers rain from the sky, falling thicker and thicker, great drifts and flurries, enough to stuff a thousand quilts. Seifer struggles to his feet, walking with an effort. He doesn't know where he's going. The feathers are knee-height, and they don't pack down. His hands hit snow again as feathers clog his mouth and nose, smothering. He opens his eyes and everything is black._

Seifer woke up, mistook Quistis's neatly laundered white feather quilt for piles of snow and fought his way out from underneath it, eyes still gritty from sleep. Spit caught in his throat, turning into a hacking cough which he tried to muffle in a corner of the sheet for fear that he would wake her.

Quistis rolled over, asleep or pretending to be. Seifer didn't care. He wasn't exactly in the mood for talking. It always took him a while to get his head back together after his more vivid dreams.

He rolled out from under the quilt, sluiced the sweat from his body and sat at Quistis's table, stark naked, monotonously opening and closing a lock-knife she used to open her mail and thinking.

It had been so long now that his dreams were more real to him than his memories. It didn't matter that he was bigger and faster and meaner than most, that he was a man grown. When he was a cadet he had always been dragged back into his childhood, back to the only time he'd ever been helpless. Even though he'd spent all of his life trying to put as much metaphorical distance as he could between himself and that scared whiny little kid, trying to prove to himself he was a force to be reckoned with, it still happened.

And ever since the wars, his childhood phobias had merged with the events of the wars, and what came after. Memories of the time he'd run into seven thousand square miles of Trabian mountain pine forest were new, and, he considered, relatively innocuous compared to his recent flashbacks. Rinoa, then Irvine. They'd both been pretty freaked.

Maybe things would get better, he thought. Or maybe they wouldn't.

And that made him scared, and angry, more than ever.

The problem was, he thought, that the weapons-fixing didn't wear him out enough to sleep well. He had considered jogging or something, but he wasn't a running person unless there was somebody to show off to or beat, preferably both. And right now, any of the SeeDs could beat him without trying. Even the real little ones.

_So-bad dreams, but no more schizophrenic episodes….thank Hyne. I'll get more sleep and quit smoking and they'll go away. _

_And it's been a whole two days, as well_, his brain needled.

He wondered how to tell Quistis that a combination of sleep deprivation and what was probably guilt was making him see things, and came up with no answer.

Eventually, the sun rose.

* * *

Quistis yawned, and opened her eyes. If anything, she felt as tired as she had been the night before. Her quilt was knotted and rucked up around her, and as usual she was alone in bed. She wiped sleep from her eyes and yawned. Seifer had turned on the shower at three a.m. The noise of the water had woken her and she had drifted in and out of sleep for the remainder of the night. Sometime later, she'd heard Seifer making a weird kind of clicking noise, and she'd been too drowsy to tell him to shut up.

_Hyne, what a night._

The alarm clock beeped aggressively. Quistis reached out with a flat palm and hit it.

She combed her fingers through her hair and looked up at Seifer. He sat awkwardly in her desk chair, thumbing through part of her book collection. He looked almost as tired as she felt, though this was no consolation.

"Morning."

"Morning."

Quistis didn't plan her next words. They just happened, born of exhaustion, frustration, and too much teaching of incompetent twelve-year -olds. "Hey-don't you want to go sleep in your bed tonight?"

Seifer swung round, so fast he almost crashed into the desk and had to reach out a hand to steady himself. He winced and cracked bruised knuckles, his body dark against the morning sun flooding the window. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Quistis reached for her spectacles. "I'm not getting much sleep." she pointed out.

Seifer scowled. "Well, shit, neither am I."

"You could have tried to be quiet."

"I did."

Quistis noticed the challenging sound in his voice and attempted to douse troubled waters with oil. "Are you all right. I didn't-"

"If you don't want me around, then just say so."

Quistis decided that she had a headache. She reached for her teacherly tweed skirt, crumpled in a ball by the bed. "I do want you around. I'm _trying_, Seifer. But there's got to be some give and take."

Seifer said nothing. Quistis pursued the topic. "We could both do with a good night's sleep. Maybe you'll sleep better without me to keep you up at night." She tried to inject a bit of humour. It didn't work.

"Doubt it."

"Is it always this bad?"

"It's always this bad."

"Why don't you go to Dr. Kadowaki?"

"There's nothing she can do."

Quistis sighed, frustrated. "Visit Edea, then"

"No."

"You don't know that it'll make things worse."

Seifer slammed the book he was holding closed. "I know that it won't make anything fucking better."

"No." Quistis slid out of bed, reaching for her clothes. She selected a pair of matching taupe nylon tights from a drawer. "You don't."

"Like you don't know that GF's won't hurt you."

"Let's not start that again." Quistis said. She rested one hand against her palm briefly. Yup, Definitely a headache.

"They fuck with your _brain_, Quis."

"And insomnia isn't messing with yours?" Quistis snapped. She pulled her clothes on, adjusting her spectacles. "The GFs are my job. Don't try and protect me."

"I can't do anything about this. This is me. It's what I was and it's what happened two years ago and there isn't any damn thing I can do about that. And if you can't deal with that, tough shit." He got up , leaving her chair spinning. "You can change the GFs. You don't have to lose your memory, it's something you damn well choose. And you don't have to."

"What it means to be a SeeD has changed since the wars. We all use GFs."

You all fucking forget things." Seifer gathered all the clothes he wasn't wearing, a t-shirt and one sock. "All you SeeDs."

"We don't _want_ to."

"You sure about that, Quis? Why don't you think long and fucking hard about what you want."

"What's that supposed to mean."

"Whatever. Work it out." Seifer took two long strides across the room, obviously on his way to the door. Quistis moved to block him.

"Don't talk to me like-"

The door slammed.

"-that." Quistis finished off, defeated. She yanked the door open, but he was too far away already, and she wasn't running after him. Her shirt was untucked and creased, her skirt was on the wrong way round and her legs were still minus stockings.

_That went well. _Quistis thought sarcastically.

She sat on the corner of her bed for a while, mulling over the conversation. There was no remnant of Seifer in the room, which was unusual, given his hasty departure. He normally managed to leave something behind. Quistis had never thought of it as marking territory, but she did now. Her room remained defiantly her own, neat and tidy and clean, strangely impersonal. The bed was still her bed, no matter how many times they fucked in it. Now she thought about it, there was not much they shared. No evidence of Seifer-and-Quistis, together, a couple. They'd been so careful.

Quistis sighed.

She unlocked the cabinet built into her bedside table and picked up her diary, trying to remind herself of why she'd dated Seifer in the first place. Her journal was a mismatched thing at best, whole blank periods when, paradoxically, she'd been far too busy to note down any of the interesting things which she was actually doing.

But in Trabia, during those first few days at the beach resort, she hadn't had much to do at all.

Quistis leafed through the pages, turning to the date when they'd first slept together, wondering what she'd written about those first sweet few days when they were still exploring each other. She flicked her hair away from her shoulders, irritated by its fineness. It stuck to her hands.

There was the day. Quistis deciphered her own copperplate handwriting easily.

'_Nothing much happened'_

She dropped the book and rolled over onto her back. Editing her life, just in case somebody saw, filling each day with work and love affairs too confidential to write down, in case somebody was watching.

The story of her life.

It figured.

* * *

Sooo-a long chapter, and a long author note.

RTS is rated PG13, mainly as it's the highest rating you can get with the fic showing up on the regular search page. However, I have received a not-quite complaint, couched in the most polite of terms, that maybe this fic might contain uh, sexual details unsuitable for readers of more tender years.

Some explanation. I always considered that as long as I didn't actually mention the down-and-dirty details, as far as sex went, I was okay. If anything, I think the incessant swearing and sometimes quite graphic violence are equal reasons why this fic maybe isn't PG-13. My previous fic, South Down The Coast, certainly is similar in tone to this one, and rated similarly. But I always made up my mind that if anyone commented on the rather adult themes, I'd upgrade the ratings, having no desire to see my writing disappear a la the great 'porn purge' of lore.

Basically, I'm 23. I've been reading whatever I wanted all my life, and I'm fairly unshockable, so I think it's pretty fair to say that my view of what might shock a thirteen-year old isn't quite what the thirteen year olds themselves might think- or indeed, their parents.

Guys, I don't write sex scenes to corrupt anyone. My view is, if this is a fic about two twenty-something consenting adults, then sex is a natural part of a relationship, and as such is worth including. It's not gratuitous. The word 'cock' isn't mentioned once. But if some people may be offended, I have the option to upgrade it to NC17, which I'm prepared to do. I'm not moving the 'dirty' chapters to separate pages, as one) I have no webhosting and two) I don't want to seclude my sexy scenes. Sex isn't dirty. It shouldn't be ghettoed.

Whew. Anyway, rant/explanation over. So this is what I'm asking, basically. If anyone thinks that this fic is too 'racy' for PG13 rating, please include it in your review, and I'll change the rating. Can't get fairer than that.

Next chapter: the tables are turned: a truce, tattoos, the Thekla, and trouble.

And no sex.

Sorry :P

Kate.

Reviews:

Breaker-one: Ta. I hope you like the freaky dream sequence. That boy needs therapy.

Enkida: That IS a good way to handle Rinoa's limit break. I always managed to stock her up with Blinds and Berserks and really low level spells which effectively made her useless..

Ghost-140; The UK's wet and small, but it's got an evil sense of sarcasm. We're all fucking cynics.

Iudex Acerbus- Odine, Matron and indeed the city of Esthar will be rather important later, though there may or may not be flames.

Jack Hanek; The baby-tumor comment came from a message board talking about parenting drivebys-you know, when perfect strangers try to tell you bring up your kid. And I'd already watched Fargo by this point, so Shirin was already pregnant…. You write stuff, though I'll review it.

Lain Of The Weird-The sk8terbOy thing's been hanging around my notes for quite literally years. I just had to find somewhere to put it in.

Nynaeve77: Seifer's 'mousetrap' is of course Laguna's gift to Rinoa and Squall, Odine's stapler. It will have a purpose, later.

Quistis88; ta very much. I should get round to reading more fanfiction, but at the moment it's a job sometimes just to write.

Seatbelts: good luck with your exams, guys. I've just finished my LAST WRITTEN EXAM EVER **does happy dance** so I know what you're going through.

Seventhe: My sister's playing ff7. Have you got to the bit where you have to steal woman's accessories to break into a men's club and then end up in a hot tub? Weird.

Superviolist: I just don't know what's up with the double spacing, or the gadget which doesn't allow you to break up paragraphs with asterisks or larger spaces of anything except a big ugly line.

Zaza: I'm impressed that you read all the way from GB. Must have taken quite a while. Hope I've improved in those three years.


	9. Chapter Eight: Returning to the Scene

Recovering The Satellites

I knew you'd come back  
We always do  
Like thieves returning to  
The scene of the crime

But let me tell you  
Everything has changed.

You know they still like to talk about you  
But they don't want anything too real  
So most of the conversation revolves around  
Things that happened twenty years ago at least

They must have told you  
Everything has changed, everything  
Oh, everything must change  
Everything

It's not Saturday night, Sunday morning  
There was something else I meant to say  
It's not Saturday night, Sunday morning  
There was so much more I meant to say to you..

Madness: Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (edit)

Chapter Eight: Returning to the Scene

* * *

"I just don't see why we even have to do this any more!" a voice snapped.

Quistis shifted in her seat, arranging her long legs around the many boxes which took up most of the ATX11 cargo transport's seating area. She sighed and suppressed the twin urges to put her hands over her ears or, failing that, pick up the nearest heavy object and belt the pilot with it.

Garden's Centra trip was a regular timetabled event. A landing craft made the voyage without fail every fortnight, stuffed with news and provisions. The cargo was piled into boxes and stacked in the transport's hold, leaving just enough room for one slim and fairly small person to sit down, provided they weren't too fussy about where they rested their feet. Unfortunately that meant she was pushed right up against the bulkhead that separated the pilot's cabin from the cargo bay. And _that_ meant that she could hear Sif and Olly fighting it out.

From the sound of it, Olly was trying hard to keep his voice patient. "If you remember your geography lessons, there aren't any shops on Centra."

"There's some vegetation. She could grow crops." Sif said. Quistis had never met the cadet before Olly introduced him to her on the docks, a tall young man with blond hair who looked as if coat hangers and broom handles had figured heavily in his ancestry. He had blushed violently at the spectacle of the famous Quistis Trepe helping to load boxes, a factor which had not endeared him to Quistis. He was also North Galbadian, something else which hadn't helped. Quistis was not impressed with his attitude.

"Nothing you'd want to eat. No offence, but you didn't fight in the wars."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"If you had known Edea Kramer, you wouldn't begrudge her anything."

Sif didn't reply. Instead, he must have retaliated by stomping his foot on the accelerator because the whine of the engines rose to a slightly higher pitch.

Quistis smiled.

The voyages had once been popular. They had become steadily less so as the weeks passed and there was no change in their matron's condition. Edea never got much worse, but then she didn't get much better, either. It made people uneasy. It made the pilots uneasy. And it didn't exactly fill Quistis with joy, either, but she had learned to live with the situation.

It wasn't fair, really. Centra _was_ a long way from Balamb, and Quistis supposed that she would be slightly annoyed if she'd been stuck piloting the long run for months in a row.

Sif hadn't fought in the Sorceress wars, of course. That excused him. A little.

Quistis stretched her legs out and settled deeper into the plush blue velvet seats. She tilted her head back, resting the base of her skull on the quilted chair back. She closed her eyes and had almost dozed off before a voice woke her.

"Why don't we move Edea to Balamb, then? We wouldn't have to sail this course every fortnight."

"What, pension her off to a cottage in Balamb town? That wouldn't work." Olly said. His voice was deep and slow. Quistis had never known Olly Andaluz very well, but he had always struck her as a solid, dependable man. One of nature's sergeants, and one of Zell's friends, a man with more patience than hair.

"Surely-"

"Look." Quistis heard Olly say in his best teacher's voice. There was a faint creak of leather as he leant forwards in his seat. "Isolation's what Edea needs. Or maybe it's not, but it's what she wants. She doesn't want to be around too many people."

There was a short silence, broken only by the jingling of a keychain and the steady constant hiss as the ATX's hull cut through waves. Sif seemed to be considering Olly's speech. Unfortunately the conclusion he came to after far too long wasn't one which Quistis particularly liked. "You think she might go nova."

"It doesn't happen like that." Olly pointed out.

Quistis put the heel of her palm on her forehead and rubbed her eyes. She was sorely tempted to open the hatch and pull rank just to get Sif to be quiet, but it was always useful to know what other people thought. And if this voyage was becoming as unpopular with the other cadets as with the Galbadian, she was going to have to have a quiet word with Squall.

"So what did it happen like?"

Quistis remembered. She could never have verbalized the patchy GF-scarred memories that she still had left. Memories of winning battle after battle, of chasing desperately all over the world to find Elllone and save Rinoa, fighting monsters and saving civilians and cutting deals, making rules as they went along. And just behind them, the unspoken fear that things would boil over and erupt into a rerun of the last war with Adel.

Evidently Olly had the same feeling. His voice deepened and rose into a parade-ground growl. "Were _you_ there?"

"I didn't mean-"

"Read the history books. Mrs Kramer needs some peace and quiet. And now, so do I. Wake me when the Cape of Good Hope comes into sight. Until then, shut up."

"I just thought…..we don't-"

"As soon as we get back, believe me, I'll have you transferred." Olly snapped.

Quistis sighed. She reached up to catch the corner of the hatch between two fingers and nudged it open. Olly ducked his bald head to avoid the metal edge as Quistis gained a clearer view of the sea and the two men seated in the leather-bound pilot's chairs.

Olly grinned, exposing a row of white teeth interspersed with shining golden caps.

Sif turned bright red, then white. A rubix cube on a key ring hung down from the ignition to dangle beside his knee. The chain was already rust-stained from sea salt.

Quistis leant one elbow on the hatch's metal sill, slid her spectacles down her nose and started straight at Sif. "I can hear everything that you say, thank you very much. And I don't appreciate the sentiments. We owe a lot to Edea Kramer. I don't want to hear you talking nonsense about her ever again. And that, cadet, is an order."

Olly nodded. "If you won't listen to me, cadet, maybe you will listen to the Instructor." He winked at Quistis. "She's much prettier than me."

Quistis glared at him. Olly took absolutely no notice of the stare. He grinned back. "Thanks."

Quistis rolled her eyes at him and ducked her head back through the opening. She reached for the hatch's handle, attempting to close it quietly, and failed. The impact echoed through the craft's steel hull. From the other side came variations on the theme of _you ungrateful little shit_, carried out in a sotto voce version of a sergeant's growl.

Quistis sighed. The tips of her heavy blond hair curled loosely in the humidity. She rested a hand on her forehead and stared at the rivets on the opposite wall like she hoped they'd melt.

The truth was that she was getting tired of defending people to…other people. It felt like she was doomed to be the middleman. Or middle woman.

She hadn't talked to Seifer for the last six days, as June slipped into July, and the heat-wave continued. Nothing much had happened. The air-conditioning had malfunctioned for the third time in as many weeks, forcing lessons outside as the trees in the Quad wilted and shed brittle leaves into the flowerbeds.

The necessary repairs to the ventilation system had pulled all the engineers from their tasks and made even the exploration of Garden's mysterious mechanisms take second place. At least, that was Seifer's excuse for his absence, not that he bothered to say so, and Quistis half-believed him.

She had spent all _her_ free periods curled uncomfortably on one of the library's narrow-legged chairs, a mug of strong coffee at hand as her fingers flicked over page after page. Balamb had one of the largest libraries in the world, indeed, in certain specialized subjects, it _was_ the largest. To a scholar, it was heaven. Quistis immersed herself in information, her hair bound back in a neat braid. In fact, she would happily have spent her day off inhumed in the stacks were it not for previous arrangements made earlier in the week. She had connived to spend her free day far from Garden and –more importantly- away from Seifer. There had been a free place on the boat to Centra, and Quistis had arranged to visit Edea. It hadn't exactly been the easy option, but it had been easi_er_ than having to find him and communicate, and that said something.

Now she was beginning to have second thoughts.

She risked a glance out of the nearest opened porthole, hoping for land. The sea skimmed past only metres away and threw up a fine hazy spray which smelt of ozone and iodine. To her disappointment, there was no sign of a coastline. There wasn't much air, either. The wind whipped straight past all the hatches and portholes she had positioned open. There weren't many. The troop carriers were built ostensibly for function rather than comfort, but, like all the SeeD equipment, the designers has managed to sneak a few little luxuries in the form of quilted seats, low-level lighting and stenciled decoration. However, large windows would have compromised the craft's combat ability, and so Quistis's view was limited to three-inch wide slots paned in thick bullet-proof glass. She had already opened all the hatches SeeD regulation allowed.

But at least it was quiet.

Quistis rested on one elbow and dug a hand into one box, searching for reading material. She had noticed a few boxes of novels among the crates of provisions whilst loading, but with her usual luck none of the crates were within easy reach.

She snagged the latest copy of Garden's self-published Magazine from the crate and started down at it in absolute and near-total boredom. It took her fourteen minutes to read it from cover to cover. The inside pages contained the usual mix of news, scandalous photographs and gossip interspersed with pleas to use less water and assurances that the air conditioning would be fixed within the next couple of days.

She skimmed over them all, pausing only once for the horoscopes. It was a page that she often missed. The majority of the predictions were penned by one of the more enthusiastic Trepies. Quistis had lobbied for years to have the horoscope pages replaced by something more logical, or at least more informative.

_For Hyne's sake. Horoscopes. You might as well say that what we do every day influences the movement of stars and planets than the other way round. And that makes even less sense._

She speed-read the page anyway, searching for Libra. Seconds later she scowled, read a small paragraph beside a picture of badly-printed scales, and then read it again.

The Trepies were only too aware of Quistis's birthdate, and so her horoscope usually contained predictions of romance with a certain ginger-haired cadet, ending with a recommendation for a personal meeting with the astrologer. This one was no exception.

_Libra:_

_Do you have the feeling you're making a terrible mistake? Turn back now or face the consequences._ _You will find that a slightly aggressive approach towards your loved one is just what is needed to jump start a new relationship. Today would be a good day to get out and boldly ask someone else to dance._ _You will find that True Love will be found with younger men. Especially ginger ones._

It seemed that even the Trepies were becoming slightly disenchanted. And what was worse, the sentiments expressed in the star chart weren't a million miles away from her own. Apart from the bit about ginger-haired men, which Quistis didn't find in the least attractive. She wasn't planning to change her mind.

She sighed, folded the paper up and wedged it neatly into a corner of the overflowing box. Maybe Edea would like to read it. She didn't feel like it.

Quistis slid down in her seat, resting the soles of her shoes against the opposing bulkhead, and crooked her neck to position the cool metal frame of the chair at the back of her head. Sweat beaded in the roots of her hair.

She had been slightly disappointed that she hadn't had a chance to see Seifer before she left and explain to him that she was leaving in the morning for somewhere a long way away and he better not try to follow, which was strictly true, except that she'd be coming back that night. But it would have been nice if he'd asked. Or even been there to ask.

It wasn't like they'd broken up, Quistis thought. She fought off the feeling that five hundred miles and the ocean were both good things to keep between herself and Seifer. It had just been a –discussion.

She passed the remainder of the journey in a bubble of thought and silence.

Barely one hour later she stepped from the transport onto the barren Centra beach carrying a small box of assorted gifts collected from the various members of the orphanage gang, and a headache the size of a small Chocobo.

The deserted surroundings reflected her mood. There was one word for the Centra landscape and that was _bleak_. Quistis could feel the fair skin of her shoulders start to burn even as she carried her burden through the shallow water to the shore. The air was hot and dry, heavily perfumed with the scent of blossoms. Dry earth crunched under her boots. From the look of it, Centra had had no rain in weeks.

She shaded her eyes from the glare of sun on white limestone and marble and stared up at jagged broken pillars and ruined masonry. The orphanage was still a semi-ruin, barely habitable. Every winter storm battered it further. Eventually, Quistis though grimly, Edea would _have_ to move out.

Quistis followed the well-trodden path from the beach to the ruined house. The sea breeze whipped fine ferric dust from the shore around her calves, sandblasting the skin. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and wiped her hand on her skirt with an expression of distaste. Her shoes scuffed through broken mosaic tiles and flower petals.

Cid was there in the ruins to greet her. Quistis spotted him from a hundred metres away, sheltering in a pool of shadow cast by the ruined walls.

"Quistis!

Quistis smiled. "Hello, Cid."

She exchanged polite hugs with her mentor, affecting not to notice that she was a good head taller than Cid. His red vest was already stained under the arms with sweat, despite the shade. He had replaced his brown loafers with a pair of battered leather sandals, though he still wore knit socks beneath the beachwear.

Cid pulled back, peered myopically at her face and beamed. "What a pleasant surprise!"

Quistis murmured something complimentary. She was already feeling guilty for letting Seifer force her into taking the trip. _I should have come much sooner_, she thought, fiddling with her own new spectacles.

"So, how are things at Balamb? Is the Garden doing well?"

"As always." Quistis replied. She shifted awkwardly, wiping red desert dust from her shoes on the backs of her bare scoured legs. "The usual missions. We're keeping busy. The commissary sent the regular shipment."

"I'll go and help unload. Now, I suppose that you've come to see Edea."

"How is she?" Quistis asked.

"Stable." Cid said briefly.

"So nothing's changed."

Cid shrugged. "Oh, she has her good and her bad days. Just like everyone else. Today's a good day, most definitely." He attempted a cheery smile, didn't quite make it, and pulled at the collar of his shirt.

"That's -hopeful." Quistis said diplomatically.

"Sometimes, I do think she's getting better."

"She will, Cid-"

"It's the heat, though. It isn't helping." Cid said. His nose was peeled. The orphanage had a tiny generator, but not enough power to waste on air-conditioning.

Quistis sympathized. She looked around at the desert landscape, the glare of sun on pale marble and granite. "Even Balamb's hot, this summer. Blinding sun, or thunderstorms."

"And you?" Cid said perceptively. "You look tired."

Quistis waved one hand around the cardboard box. It sagged in the middle, threatening to spill its contents over the paving slabs. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

Cid reached out and took the box from her. "I'll put this indoors. Be sure to tell everybody thank you so much."

"As usual."

"As usual. Anyway, why don't you go up-"he glanced at the lighthouse "- and see Edea. You'll meet me again in a few days' time at Garden."

Quistis looked at him in surprise. She squinted in the hot, gold sunlight. "Is it anything important?"

"There's a possibility of a major contract in Esthar. Strictly classified, though." He grinned at her. "Don't tell anybody!"

Quistis shrugged. "We've had contracts there before."

"Maybe. This isn't exactly the average mission. I'm pushing Squall to take the contract should we be offered the opportunity." He smiled, infectiously, and Quistis couldn't help but smile in return. She knew that Cid had missed the Garden contracts, nights of endless diplomatic wrangling around conference-tables." It's…inspired."

"Not one of Laguna's ideas?"

"Maybe. Anyway, everything will become clear should we be granted the task." He smiled up at her, his face as guileless as a potato. "I think it's time for you to visit Edea now. I'll make you some tea, shall I? You can take her a drink."

Five minutes later Quistis climbed the stairs, very slowly, holding a cup and saucer in each hand and balancing a plate of biscuits balanced upon one wrist. Cid had insisted on the biscuits. He said it looked like she hadn't been eating enough.

Cid and Edea. Sometimes she thought they'd grown closer since the wars, marooned together on this remote island. Sometimes, she thought they'd never been further apart.

She juggled the cups, taking each step with exaggerated care. It was pleasantly cool in the stairwell, though it smelt badly of rotting seaweed, a strange scent of iodine. Quistis paused only once, at a window set high in the lighthouse tower. The casement looked out over the shore, outlining ruin, sea, and the field of flowers, blooming slowly in the desert. She rested the cups and plates on the deep-set sill and ran her fingers carefully over the stones in the tower's rough curtain wall. They were solid, rounded with coat after coat of thick white gloss paint, applied every winter without fail. Quistis remembered with pleasure the six of them balanced on stepladders set precariously in the well of the staircase, yelling their heads off just to hear their voices echo in the confined space and splashing more paint on each other than they ever slapped on the walls. She remembered Edea being just in time, once, to prevent Selphie from drinking a quart of turpentine on a bet.

Years later, pictures decorated the stairwell in place of unruly small children. They were fly spotted but still dark, photographs of classes long-graduated mixed with a few artistic studies of the Garden in flight. Quistis peered at them, recognizing Cid's work. She gave the view a last glance before she shifted the cups into her hands, wincing as hot tea spotted her sleeves. She reached the top of the long flight of steps and fumbled for the door handle.

The destruction of Centra shipping routes along with their entire civilization centuries before had relieved the lighthouse of any practical purpose. Cid had removed the huge guiding light at the top of the tower years ago, leaving a large room ringed with thick glass windows. There were apartments below, reached by a small door set deeply into the wall. Cid and Edea had moved in after the wars, planning to rebuild the orphanage. For one reason or another, construction had never begun and the lighthouse had gradually turned into a permanent home.

Quistis stuck her foot in the door and wrestled with the door, saucers, cups, spoon, biscuits and plate. It opened slowly, allowing her a view of a comfortable room.

There was a little furniture, some comfortable chairs and a low table crafted from reclaimed wood. Glass buoys salvaged from long-lost fishing boats hung from the ceiling, all gifts to Edea from small children to whom they'd once seemed unimaginable treasure. Several of the windows had been propped open with ornaments or books to catch the sea breeze.

"Matron." Quistis said. Her boots caught on the whitewashed stone flags, and she stumbled.

"Quistis!" Edea rose out of a chair near the window like a monochrome angel. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, loose streaked with white at the temples. Her face was pale. Tiny lines were beginning to fan from the corners of her eyes and mouth, her only visible sign of ageing. She wore a simple grey cotton dress patterned with tiny blue flowers.

Quistis half-placed and half-dropped the tea and biscuits onto the table. They hugged. Edea smelt of warm cotton and washing powder, both comforting maternal smells. Quistis closed her eyes for a moment and held on, breathing her in as they disentangled.

Edea smiled. "Please, sit down. Draw up a chair."

Quistis dragged a salt-stained leather armchair up to the table. She arranged the cups neatly, aligning cup with plate, saucer with spoon.

"Such a lovely surprise! It's been too long!"

Guilt homed in on Quistis like a Scud missile. "Six months-"

"It seems longer." Edea said.

Quistis searched her statement for any hint of censure, and found none. "There was a mission. In Trabia. There was –some trouble." _And for the other four months I was willfully avoiding you, but I won't talk about that-_

Edea sipped from her tea. "I heard. " she said simply. "I'm so proud of you"

"You are?" Quistis said. She picked up her own teacup and took a swallow, burning her tongue. Cid had added far too much sugar, compensating for a five-year old's sweet tooth. Quistis hadn't the heart to tell him that these days she usually lived on espresso.

"I heard all about it. I'm sure that you did well." She gave Quistis a sharp and assessing glance, amber eyes brilliant against her pale skin. "I'm surprised you still remember me."

"I could never forget." Quistis assured her. And that oblique warning brought to mind the guardian forces, and _that_ brought to mind the argument she'd had with Seifer, and _that- _Quistis frowned. She racked her brain for small talk. "So- how are things here?"

Edea took a biscuit. They were pale pink iced rings, slightly mushy with the heat. "I keep busy. It's too warm, really."

"There's a package from Garden."

"Everyone has been so thoughtful, lately." Edea said politely, as if the SeeDs didn't Quistis brushed her thanks off. "Cid said he'd help unload."

Edea smiled. "He's been such a help. I don't know why -well, I do, but-"She looked up at Quistis. "If you ever find somebody like that, you keep them, do you hear?"

Quistis blushed violently and tried to hide it by ducking her head. Edea didn't notice. "You need to look after yourself."

Quistis smiled. It was nice to find somebody who was bothered about her damaging herself. Seifer seemed to think that she was made from asbestos, and everyone else thought she was far too capable to fall prey to accidents. She returned the compliment. "You look well." It wasn't a lie. She tamped down hope and thought maybe Seifer's return to Garden was having a positive effect on their Matron, despite the strange dreams that he swore he wasn't having.

Edea smoothed her cotton dress. Her skin was still pale, but it was healthy pale, the kind of tint that didn't make her resemble a waxen statue. "I am-"she started, then tailed off and began her next sentence with more confidence. "Yes, I am, I think. I really do. It has been such a long time since he-"

Quistis frowned. She put her own biscuit back on a china plate, untasted. "Since who what?"

"Since he-"Edea paused. "It's nothing."

"Tell me." Quistis said. Her voice was firm and flat.

"He-" Edea said, and stopped. Her knuckles were white on the handle of her cup.

"Is somebody making you do something you don't want to?"

Edea's liquid eyes were bright with fear, the irises unnaturally dilated. It made her misshapen pupils appear even stranger. ""I don't want to go back! Please, promise me I won't go back to the city?"

Her voice was pleading and would have melted far harder hearts than Quistis's. Like many of the SeeDs when it came to their Matron, Quistis had a soft spot the size of a small country. She slid from her own chair and knelt at Edea's side. She slipped one arm around the older woman's shoulders and felt hard bone under her summer cotton dress. "No one's making you go anywhere. Which city? Balamb?"

To Quistis, it felt strangely as if their roles had been reversed. She wondered what to do. It was true that she'd seen their Matron in various stages of distress over the years, but each time it seemed to take different forms.

"I have to agree. He says he'll take me." Edea said. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair convulsively, every tendon standing out.

Quistis clasped one hand over Edea's wrist, her own modest tan appearing swarthy against Edea's stark pallor. "Matron!"

Edea turned towards her, face tear-stained. She seemed to shrink back into her chair. "It's for the best."

"Nothing that makes you like this is good. Believe me, Matron…-Edea-"

"My mind plays tricks on me. Seifer's dead, and yet I can still hear him."

Quistis winced internally. "Maybe not as dead as you think-..." She wrestled with her conscience, the truth heavy on the tip of her tongue; tempted, but terrified it would make things worse. How, she wasn't sure, but it seemed wrong somehow and Quistis trusted her instincts because they were all she had. They still knew so little about the sorceresses.

"They'll take me to the city!"

Quistis gave up. She shifted her position on the hard wooden floor, feeling the imprints of floorboards in the skin of her knees. "Please come to Balamb. We can get you doctors."

Edea bent her head. Her fine dark hair fell around her face like a veil. "Please no doctors. Not even Garden doctors. Not even Aiko Kadowaki." Her chin sank further into her chest and her voice softened. "Do you know that I enjoyed it, part of me? Standing at the celebrations, murdering President Deling…"

Quistis recalled the late and unlamented president. "Nobody's going to blame you for that. Don't be ashamed."

"I'm not, and that's the problem. Can you understand? It was satisfying. Revenge for all the people who so feared sorceresses when I did nothing but good for years."

Quistis fell back on outright denial. "It wasn't your fault-"

"It's foul. It makes me feel dirty just to think of it. I need Cid."

Quistis half-rose. "I'll call him." From their vantage point she could just make out the figure of Cid, heaving boxes with Sif and Olly into the protection of the ruined orphanage's cellars.

Edea raised her head, wiping pale fingers across her cheekbones. "There's really no need." Something passed behind her eyes for a second, turning the irises glittering and opaque like mirror glass. It was a look that Quistis recognised from Rinoa. She felt a prickling sensation down her spine and knew that their Matron had called Cid.

Edea did not look well. Her eyes were half-closed, the lids swollen with tears. Tiny sobs forced their way out of her throat, soft sorrowing noises.

Cid appeared a few minutes later and took over the situation with his usual amiable efficiency. With Quistis's help, he carried Edea to their own apartments and saw her settled in a huge double bed, soft as a cloud with plumped pillows and a thick white eiderdown. Cid drew the curtains and they both climbed the short flight of stairs back to the tower room.

As soon as they had arrived Cid drew a deep breath and jammed his hands into his pockets. He spoke reluctantly. "I'm sorry, but I think you'd better-"

"Leave." Quistis said. "I knew that." She stared down at the table, at the spilled tea and upset cups.

Cid followed her gaze. He pulled at his collar again, looking deeply uncomfortable in his body. "I don't want to have to ask this of you. Come and see us in better times, eh?"

Quistis reached down and set a teacup upright. "I will, Cid." She bent down to pick up a flung spoon and her fingernail touched something thin and solid. It felt like the kind of card you wedged underneath a table leg to prevent misshapen furniture rocking, but it wasn't supporting anything. She caught it between thumb and forefinger and pulled it out.

"What's this?"

Cid barely spared the card a glance. He darted worried glances towards the door leading to their apartments as if he couldn't wait to return to his wife. "Never seen it before."

Quistis shrugged. She slipped the card into a pocket, replaced the missing spoon on the tabletop beside the other tea paraphernalia, hugged Cid once, and left.

"I'll send you a mail message via the intranet!" Cid called after her. "Left you know how Edea's doing!"

Quistis nodded, already halfway down the stairs. Sif, supplies barely unloaded, opened his mouth to complain about leaving so early. Then he took one look at Quistis's expression and shut up.

They travelled back to Balamb in silence.

* * *

YOU HAVE MAIL!

Seifer grinned and hit the Read button

Date: Tuesday 16th July 1519 14.51.58 -0700(PDT)

From: "z dincht" zd901balamb. Re: rematch

To: "s almasy" sa1694balamb. Repeat of original message follows:

DO U WANT A REMATCH Y/N?

Yes.

Z Dincht (Lv34 SD, Sgt)

After Seifer had stormed out of Quistis's bedroom, his first reaction has been to get drunk and go fight somebody. Since the former was banned inside Garden, and he couldn't leave, he had been forced to settle for the latter. He wasn't quite suicidal enough to duel monsters unarmed, so the Training Centre was out of bounds. Raijin and Fuujin were likewise off the list. They were friends. Seifer wanted to fight something serious, something that he could hurt. Besides, two years ago he'd known all the duo's moves off by heart. Unless they'd learned some new techniques, he wasn't really interested. And alienating the only two people in the whole of Garden he hadn't managed to piss off in the last few days seemed too masochistic, even for Seifer.

Which left Zell. Again.

There was one problem with Seifer's plan. The last time he'd seen Zell, he'd cheated in a duel and knocked him unconscious. Zell, he'd reasoned, might understandably be reluctant to stage a rematch. But he'd always thought him stupid.

This ferocious thought process had culminated in a single email. Seifer had at least been allowed onto the intranet of Balamb. Even the most paranoid Garden hack had to admit that Seifer had all the computer skills of an illiterate Marlboro, and therefore any dastardly plot to overthrow the Garden by hacking into the system was pretty much a non-starter. They'd been right.

Seifer read over the email once more. This manoeuvre took him all of two seconds. He considered, then pressed Reply. His main concern had been whether or not Dincht would be able to read after the concussion, but it didn't look as if he'd had any trouble.

Date: Tuesday 16th July 1519 18.56.04 -0700(PDT)

From: "s almasy" sa1694balamb. Re: Re: rematch

To: "z dincht" zd901balamb.

DO U WANT A REMATCH Y/N?

Yes.

An answering email popped up almost immediately. Zell's typing skills were a slight improvement on Seifer's. Men with no fingers could use a keyboard faster than Seifer.

_See you Wednesday seventeen thirty hours second gymnasium_

Seifer typed in '17.45' just for the hell of it. It wouldn't have been a problem to rearrange his hours to suit whatever time Zell wanted, but perversity won out. He pressed a key. Sent the message.

Zell sent a note back within seconds.

_It's a match, asshole._

A few minutes later Seifer noted that here was another message in his inbox. He called it up and opened it, expecting another missive from Zell. He was wrong.

Date: Tuesday 16th July 1519 18.59.14 -0700(PDT)

From: "Commander s leonhart" commanderslbalamb. Rematch

To: "z dincht" zd901balamb. "s almasy" sa1694balamb. proposed rematch:

I congratulate you both on your persistence. Excellent idea.

After due consideration I have decided to extend this assignment on both your parts. Instructor Dincht will teach Probationary SeeD Cadet Seifer Almasy the art of unarmed combat. Probationary Cadet Almasy will instruct Zell Dincht in gunblade duelling. This arrangement should add necessary skills to both your combat repertoires.

Training will be undertaken with non-lethal weapons only, using pads, in the second gymnasium twice weekly. Timetabled lessons will be added to both your schedules.

There will be no repeat of last week's incident. Please do not trouble yourself to reply to this message.

Yours most sincerely.

Squall Leonhart

(Commander, Balamb Garden.)

Seifer swore.

There was an attached document with the email. It took him ten minutes to work out how to open it and almost as long to decipher the attached timetable. Squall (or, more likely Xu) had kept the Wednesday slot Zell and Seifer had originally agreed on. Seifer noticed with interest that he'd been scheduled to teach Zell that day. A second Friday slot had been inserted, presumably for Zell to finish what he'd attempted to start in their previous duel.

The timetable reminded him that he was almost thirty minutes late for his slot in the garage. It wasn't like anybody would mind (or even notice) if he didn't bother to turn up, but the entire maintenance staff had been run ragged lately. Seifer would never have admitted that he felt even a little bit sorry for them.

Dammit. Leonhart was forcing him to have a conscience. And worse-some sense of timekeeping. And he wasn't sure he liked _Probationary Cadet._

Seifer scrawled the time of the meeting on the back of his hand in indelible blue biro and slouched over to the garage. The door was half-ajar, a thin and vile smelling vapour oozing from the crack. He entered, automatically ducking down and leaning to the right to avoid the assorted crap hanging from the ceiling. There was a deep mechanical noise and a strong smell of oil.

The other members of SeeD's Engineer Corps were seated around the room, picking at various intricate mechanical items. Several of them grunted as Seifer came in, and Chy went so far as to nod his head once, a rare gesture of resounding approval for the old engineer.

Seifer dumped a pile of greasy and jagged spare parts from his chair and sat down. His current task was soldering terminal connections for the new AC units Shirin was installing. It was the kind of task that could have safely been entrusted to a monkey with a screwdriver. Worse, it required just enough intelligence to prevent Seifer from completely disengaging his brain. Even worse, there was no smoking allowed. Chy was working over in the corner on a project involving petrol fumes and pressurized acetylene, and Seifer wasn't that insane. He compensated by demanding a constant supply of lethal coffee, the kind Quistis liked. Between units he picked through the spare parts bin, searching idly for stray items in a quest to make his homemade mousetrap ever more lethal. Playing around, really.

It was mid-shift before he found anything even worth a second glance. A piece of twisted metal gleamed dully between the tarnished and rusty items, steel pipes sheared neatly in half and healing mail with links missing.

Seifer pulled the item out and held it up to the dim and dusty rays that down here passed as light. The links left green marks on his hand.

It was a necklace. Or part of one, anyway. The clasp was intact, although all of the cabochon stones had been lost from their settings and part of the chain was badly bent. An elaborately contrived arrangement of hammered vines and tiny silver flowers caught each stone in a kind of half-net. None of the spaces was larger than Seifer's fingernail.

Seifer viewed it with a practiced eye. Five minutes with a hammer, a small anvil and maybe an acid-bath, and the dents could be fixed. The only question was what kind of use it would be.

Seifer closed his fist, scrunching the necklace into a ball in his palm with absolutely no regard whatever for its further health. He shouted until he was sure that he'd attracted Deft's attention, then threw the chain over to her. "Hyne, what is this?"

Deft snatched the necklace out of the air with both gloved hands. She cupped it between her palms, scowled, rubbed at the chain with a finger and screwed a jeweler's loupe into one eye socket. The stained chrome gleamed against her smoke-stained skin.

"Useless, unless you want it. Pity it hasn't got any stones left. Originally there would have been five. Used to be the fashion."

Seifer frowned. Next to his elbow his discarded soldering iron ate its way through the desk. "Never heard of it."

Deft slid the necklace between her fingers, examining each part of the intricate silver decoration. She produced a soft cloth from a box on her desk and rubbed at the chain, peering at a hallmark. "You wouldn't. More of a civilian thing. For people who can't cast magic, see? These holes would have been filled with stones, and even civilians can use the stones to cast spells. They're keepsakes, the kind of thing you'd wear every day. And if you were ever faced by a monster, you might be able to stall it long enough to get out of range." She swiped the cloth over the necklace and returned the rag to its box. "Or then again, you might not. Practical, really. Don't know why it went out of fashion."

Seifer absent-mindedly retrieved the soldering iron from his desk and slotted it into its stand. He waved one hand in front of his face to dispel a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. "Is it worth anything?"

"Hell, no. Keep it."

Seifer shrugged and held one hand up for the necklace to be tossed back. "What about fixing it? You got any spare stones around I could have to finish the thing off?"

Deft half-rose out of her seat. She threw the necklace overarm at Seifer, slotted the glass back into a wall-mounted wire rack and continued with her work. "Sure. Just as long as you buy them."

Seifer grunted. He hung the catch from one finger and examined the necklace critically. He supposed that it was pretty. Pretty and free. Even better, it twinkled, it looked flashy, and it worked as some kind of weapon. Perfect for Quistis.

"Fine. How much?"

Deft named a price. Seifer cut it by half. Deft flatly refused. He ended up paying most of his cigarette money for his pick of the garage's boxes of spare stones, complaining the whole time. Deft ignored his bitching. She conspicuously failed to mention the few stones he'd borrowed, 'broken' and failed to return. Seifer had a nasty feeling that she knew exactly how he'd been getting his cigarette money.

He stood, pushing the chair back along long tracks scarred in the floor by generations of previous users, and began to search the workshop's shelves for stones to fill the necklace's empty settings. The cluttered shelves held assorted boxes of many different gems. Ultima stones like black opals slid between his fingers in smooth polished lumps and Flare stones gleamed with rosy light. But even Seifer wasn't stupid enough to give Quistis something pink.

It took him fifteen minutes to locate an Aura stone for the largest central setting, the one with the most elaborate silverwork. It was a glowing golden orb, like a fat drop of honey. He picked a deep blue wizard stone for the settings nearest the clasp on each side. The paired middle jewels were flat iridescent moonstones with sparks and twinkles of light in their depths. Gold, and two shades of blue, Garden's colours.

He set the new stones on the desk, examining each for size and colour, and pried the existing jewels from their sockets with a spare piece of wire. The stones went into a zip-lock bag scrawled with Seifer's name. He dumped the empty silverwork into a sink, emptied in a bottle of neat rubbing alcohol and a handful of the powdered limestone Deft used for sharpening her swords and left it. So far, so good. He knew that timing would be crucial. Quistis was no walkover and she certainly wasn't the type to be impressed by gifts.

He shrugged, received a nasty look from Deft, and went back to his soldering.

* * *

"So how was Edea?" Selphie asked. She wore a yellow silky dress with a scoop neck which would have been extremely conservative were it not for the fact that the knee-length skirt had a slit in the back which displayed a good foot of her thighs.

Quistis leant forwards in her seat. She had changed back into her peach battle outfit and there were salad cream stains on her gloves. It had been fourteen hours since she had returned from Centra, clutching a damp piece of cardboard and with no clue about what, exactly, had happened there. "Bad." she said flatly.

Selphie looked disappointed. "That's it? What was the matter?" She slumped across the table, elbow crooked, one hand slipped into her hair.

Quistis twirled a piece of lettuce round her fork. "I don't want to talk about it. Oh, look. Do you ever get the feeling that sometime you just need to ask the right question at exactly the right moment, and then everything will be all right? You'll find out exactly what you want to know? Only because you don't know what to ask, you always say the wrong thing. And if only you knew the right question, everything would just be so easy?"

Selphie gave her a strange look. "Why do you say that?"

Quistis dropped her fork with a clang. She spread her hands. "I got the feeling there was something wrong with Edea." She frowned. "No, there _was _something wrong. Edea was hiding something from me."

"You're hiding something from _her_. You still haven't told her about Seifer, remember." Selphie said, reasonably.

"It was close."

"Talking about hiding-you mean she lied to you?"

Quistis pulled a napkin towards her and wiped stains from her dark gloves. "No! She just freaked. She was talking about someone taking her to the city. It didn't make any sense. Cid was really upset. And I found this." She held out the card.

Selphie took the card delicately from Quistis, fingernails scraping across her palm. She frowned at it, wiggling her fingers to flip the pasteboard over in her hand. "It's a Rorschach blot."

Quistis sighed. "That's what I thought, at first. But I looked at it in the transport all the way back and started wondering if some ink could have fallen on it-"

Selphie cupped the card in her palm and held it out to Quistis. "Nah. You were right. It's symmetrical." She traced the outline of the blot with her free hand. If you squinted at the stain, Quistis decided, it looked like a butterfly. Or a guitar. Or a mask. Or a midget playing piano. She sighed again.

"I wonder if Cid's been up to something with her. But he didn't seem to react when I showed it him. He seemed far too worried about Matron."

Selphie bent the card in her hand. It curved outwards, bent, and flicked out of her hand to land on the table. "How do you think it got there?"

Quistis looked round the cafeteria. The corner was empty apart from her and Selphie, facing each other across the table. With the pasteboard, they could be carrying on a game of Triple Triad. "Someone gave it her. Someone's got a hold on her and I couldn't break it. She was scared, Selphie. And Edea doesn't scare easily."

"Have you told Cid?" Selphie said logically.

"No."

"What about a doctor?"

Quistis shrugged. "She didn't want one. Not even Doctor Kadowaki. Did you know her first name was Aiko?

"No." Selphie said with interest.

"Me neither. Anyway, Edea was adamant: no doctors, and I agree. It just didn't feel right. She was so scared!"

Selphie shifted, adjusting the position of her nunchucks in her belt. "Just because she doesn't think it's right doesn't mean it's best for her."

Quistis picked up the card. "That's what I tried to say. But it felt wrong."

"She was possessed." Selphie spread her hands. "What's supposed to feel right?"

"I don't think anybody knows." Quistis sighed reflectively. "But it just didn't."

Selphie tilted her head to play with one citrine earring. She didn't look Quistis in the eye. "Ask Seifer?"

"We're not exactly on speaking terms at the moment."

"You broke up? " Selphie said.

"No. Yes. Augh!" Quistis clutched at her head. Blond hair spilled out between her fingers. "People can be so difficult!"

Selphie laughed, a loud belly laugh that seemed incongruous coming from such a small girl. "Three years an instructor, and you're only just figuring that out?"

Quistis removed her hands from her hair, patting ineffectually at stray strands. She pulled at her high collar. "Not three years."

"Near enough." Selphie said. "Look, I'll talk with Irvine. He's in charge of the landing parties. I'll tell him what you said and then if he's worried we'll send it straight to Squall and he'll do-something." She used her short nails to lever the card from the table top and waved it at Quistis. Mind if I borrow this?"

"Go ahead."

Selphie stowed the Rorschach card into an invisible pocket sewn into her thin silky dress. "And it might be better if you could write up your version of events. A testimony."

"It's not like I have anything better to do." Quistis said. She was perfectly serious, no trace of sarcasm.

Selphie sighed. She patted her pocket, checking for no trace of bulge, lent over the table and took one of Quistis's hands in both of hers. "For Hyne's sake, take some advice. I've never seen you so torn up before. It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic."

"It's not tragic-" Quistis snapped. People had obviously been saying things and that made Quistis want to have a few words of her own.

Selphie gave her a small and sympathetic grin. "Look, if you want him, have him -and don't feel bad about it. If you can live without him, then get rid. It's that easy."

Quistis smiled wanly, recalling Edea's advice. _If only everything was that simple_, she thought. "Selphie, nothing's that easy."

"Maybe it isn't. But nothing has to be as complicated as you think."

"It's difficult." Quistis defended herself. She took up the napkin again, shredding tiny fragments between her fingers.

"Then that's easy!" Selphie beamed. "There's only one way to tell. Is it ceiling sex yet?"

Quistis's hands stilled. Pardon me?"

Selphie grinned. "Ceiling sex. You know-"

Quistis, mouth open, stared at her. "I know I don't want to-"

"You don't know?" Selphie said with interest.

"No." Quistis said, in the kind of tone female Toramas used just before they pounced. "I don't." She reached across the table and dropped the napkin she had been toying with onto Selphie's discarded plate.

"Come on." said Selphie. "You know. When you're lying on your back-oh, you get the picture. Use your imagination. And all you're thinking is –'Hey, it's about time to replaster that ceiling again.' "

Quistis only looked at her, mouth open. "I'm slightly disturbed you even have a word for it."

"That's me. Full of surprises."

"For your information, no, it is not 'ceiling sex.'

"Oh." Selphie said innocently.

"Mind you, the ceiling of my room is tiled in polystyrene." Quistis said reflectively. A second later her face turned red and she snapped "What's that got to do with anything! Look, Selphie, life is not just about sex, and you-"

Selphie laughed. ""Here's a tip. Don't listen to what everyone says. Including me. Just do what you want."

"That's easy for you to say."

"I'm serious. Besides, I hear he's teaching Zell. Xu told me, so it's reliable. And you wanted him to do something useful"

"_Seifer_?"

"Yup."

"_Zell_?"

"Certain to be."

Quistis sighed. "Hyne. I just can't believe he agreed to it."

"Me neither." Selphie said, smiling.

* * *

Zell shook his head. "I can't believe I agreed to this."

Seifer, over at the other side of the gymnasium, shrugged. After some thought, he had decided to take Squall's order of lessons with Zell at least part-seriously. "Worried, shortarse?"

"Hell, no. But-"

"But what?"

"Have you ever tried teaching anyone anything before?"

Seifer shrugged again. They were both geared up for combat, wearing pads this time. He selected a training sword from the rack set against the wall. There were a variety of sizes and shapes, designed for students. The one Seifer chose was the same approximate size and weight of Hyperion, with a single edge. A makeshift hilt had been fashioned from some duct tape at one end. "No. How hard can it be?" He picked a second sword for Zell, slightly longer and lighter, double-edged.

Zell snorted. "Well, lemme tell you. There was this time I took the fourth year students out to a training camp near Balamb town. We were on the plains, didn't 'spect to find anything bigger than Bite bugs and Geezards. Just my luck a cluster of Wendigos decided to spore from the forest. They-"

Seifer ran a hand through the massed practice swords, checking for any he'd missed. "Get real, Dincht. Nobody wants to know how you dug four monster molars out of your leg with the point of a rusty knife. Just shut up, will you? Gell your hair or something. I'm trying to think."

"Must be hard." Zell muttered. He ripped a Velcro fastening apart, checking the fit of his pads. He made some minute adjustment and refastened the Velcro.

Seifer turned from the weapons rack, a wooden sword in each hand. "Catch."

Zell caught. "No cheating, remember."

Seifer flipped his own sword in the air, showing off. His pads were the same as Zell's standard Garden issue, faded cotton over a thin layer of foam. "It's not cheating."

Zell folded his arms. "It's not when you're fighting in a battle. But when you're training, and you promise not to kick someone, and then you do-that's cheating."

"Still sore about that?" Seifer grinned.

"I had concussion." Zell snapped. Three hours spent in the infirmary under the tender ministrations of Doctor Kadowaki had done absolutely nothing for his temper. "Look, we made a deal." He pulled at one flame-stenciled sleeve and flexed his shoulders, making sure the cloth didn't restrict his movement.

"Squall made a deal." Seifer pointed out.

Zell ignored him. "I'll teach you dueling, and you teach me sword-fighting. But we fight fair. It's combat, not brawling."

Seifer's expression suggested that he saw no difference. "You'll be fucked by the time you're thirty-five if you don't fight like it's real. There's no point learning any other way." He grinned. "Hell, the way you're heading with that library girl, you'll be lucky if you're fucked by the _time_ you're thirty-fi-"

"No." Zell said flatly.

Seifer gestured at Zell's fists, attired in padded fight gloves like his own. "Come off it, how many of the bones in your hands have you broken?"

How many scars have you got from duelling?" Zell countered.

Seifer scowled. The cicatrix between his eyes tightened as he frowned, forcibly reminding him of Squall. "Just stop punching things, fuckwit."

He found it hard to take Zell seriously at times. All the time, to tell the truth. He was a good fighter and the students and Garden staff respected him. He got on with other people effortlessly due to his quick mouth and insatiable curiosity, a skill that Seifer had never bothered to learn. He was good with machines and still honored for his role in the Sorceress' wars by everyone but a few Galbadian soldiers with broken noses who were reminded of Zell every time they looked in a mirror.

In short, Seifer was jealous.

Seifer scowled. He tapped his stick on the ground, raising puffs of sand from the arena floor. He missed his gunblade. Seifer had heard the age-old adage that you didn't bring a knife to a gun fight, and Hyperion neatly covered for all eventualities. Of course, you couldn't do much harm at all with the wooden swords that were standard practice issue.

He grinned. Not unless you tried really, _really_ hard, anyway….

Zell weighed his own weapon in his hand. "My sword is smaller." he pointed out suspiciously, sure that Seifer was making the training purposely hard for him.

Seifer bit down on the obvious comeback. "You're smaller. Rapiers are lighter. And you're fast enough for them."

"What's their reach?" Zell said. He went through some test moves, and even Seifer had to admit that he managed them well enough.

"Not that long, but they punch through armor fine. You haven't got the power of something heavier so get yourself a dagger and keep it in your belt. At the back, so you can reach it if you need to."

Zell held his stick up to the light. If they'd been using live blades the sword would have glinted impressively, but as it was fashioned from oak, it did anything but. "It's light."

"Wait. It won't be." Seifer said. He moved towards Zell, tapping the tip of the makeshift weapon on the floor. His body language had changed. Usually he looked as if he was trying to make himself take up as much space as humanly possible. He was moving smoothly. Stalking. And he was grinning evilly. Zell had seen more reassuring grins on the faces of T-Rexaurs. He began to have a bad feeling about this.

"We'll be one hour." he told the SeeD in charge of the gym, who was hovering around with a worried look on her face. She nodded quickly and hurried away.

Zell had strenuously avoided questioning the fact that Seifer be allowed to teach him at all, partly because he had no particular desire to be kicked unconscious again, but mostly because he had an idea that Seifer would have reacted by furiously defending his right to be there, and two hours later they still wouldn't be finished with the room because it would take quite a lot of time to clean all the blood from the walls.

He hefted the weapon in his hand. "What now?"

Seifer thought for a moment. "Try to hit me. And use all the guards. If you know them."

Zell nodded.

"And don't kick. Use your fucking sword."

He watched as Zell lifted his stick into an attack kata. The defensive position came as naturally as breathing. He raised one hand and beckoned him on. "Come on."

Zell attacked.

Ten minutes later, they were both out of breath and Seifer was pissed off. He was having to _try. _

He wasn't having to try very hard, because Seifer had been practising sword fighting for most of his life whereas Zell had only been practising for the last couple of years. But this wasn't strictly sword fighting, it was fencing. And fencing was duelling with the nasty bits taken out, and Seifer was having to try quite hard to remember how to fight without, for example, smashing his opponent over the head with a chair, then kicking him in the nuts.

At least Zell wasn't a complete beginner, he thought. They could hit you _anywhere_.

He deflected Zell's attack with a high block and stepped aside. Zell's sword tip buried itself in the soft sandy floor of the gymnasium. Seifer was expecting Zell to hurtle after it, but he caught himself neatly, one hand flat against the sand to steady himself.

Seifer lowered his stick. "You're not bad." He didn't try too hard to keep the surprise from his voice.

"That's because I spent the last two years practicing." Zell replied. Emphasizing the _practicing_ just to be sure that Seifer got the message, which was that Zell knew he'd spent the last two years doing anything but.

"Who with?" Seifer's tone suggested that he already knew the answer. "Squall, right?"

Zell let his sword drop, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his thin forearm pad. "With Squall, yeah. How did you know?"

"You move like him." Seifer said. The way Zell fought, patiently and meticulously, wasn't exactly the duelling method he'd expected Dincht to pick up on his own. Squall fought methodically, tirelessly, a tic-toc man with occasional flashes of brilliance. The only time he'd ever seen him get worked up about combat was two years ago, and Seifer had had to slash his face open just to get a reaction.

"Squall's a good teacher." Zell said, defensively.

"Would be. He's got the patience. I was just looking forwards to beating you up again. You're not quite as shit as I thought, though."

Zell was wise enough to take the comment as a compliment. "That's the only reason you agreed to teach me, wasn't it?"

"Well, yeah." Seifer said, as if it was obvious.

In fact, although visions of Zell as a greasy silhouette pummelled into the floor were undoubtedly pleasant, they weren't the only reason why he had resumed their training sessions. Neither were all of Quistis's schemes, though they came close. The truth was that Seifer needed practice, and beating up Zell was a good way to get it. Also, he thought, fun.

"How come Squall's not still teaching you?"

"Didn't have the time. We still spar though. Hey, he's always in the training centre after work. You should go, seeing as you're always up for half the night. He doesn't finish 'til two or three in the morning, some days."

"I've got better things to do in my spare time." Seifer said automatically. He wondered how his chronic insomnia had become Garden common knowledge. "Can't use proper weapons, remember? Wooden swords don't count."

"Learn fist fighting and you don't _need_ weapons." Zell pointed out.

"Hyne knows why Squall stuck me with this, anyway."

Zell sighed. "What're you good at, Seifer?"

"What d' you mean, what am I good at?" Seifer snarled. Zell's tone of voice, which was that of explaining something which was blindingly obvious to anyone with half the sense of a Moomba, infuriated him. As, he guessed, it was supposed to. He had a suspicion Zell was enjoying this.

"You're good at fighting." Zell said, patiently. "Face it, Squall wouldn't let you back in and make you useless to Garden all in one go."

"The fucking devious bastard."

"The Garden council wouldn't agree to let you loose with weapons, is all."

"He's a sneaky cunt."

"If you're useful, though." Zell said, ignoring the obscenities," they might come round."

"You reckon I might get Hyperion back?"

"Maybe. Give 'em a while. Least, that's what I think."

"Who cares what you think?" Seifer snarled absently.

The truth was that he was beginning to realise Zell might not be hard to teach. He picked up on things quickly and whatever he lacked in physical strength and size he more than made up for in speed.

_If it wasn't for Squall making me duel him_, Seifer thought, _I might just enjoy this_.

They squared up again, feet tracing over the gym's sandy floor.

* * *

"I just hope that you know what you're doing, that's all!" Kiros said, and sighed. The trio had decamped from the ancient skyscraper, citing the unreliable power supply. The truth was that the building had outlived its use. Laguna's plan was nearly finished, and an uninterrupted view of Esthar City and its walls were no longer considered necessary for his scheming. They were comfortably settled in one of the Presidential Palace's many anonymous suites. It might not have been several hundred feet above ground, but it had a phone line and it was closer to the library that their previous office.

"My plan." Laguna said. "will be a triumph." He doodled on a world map with a red pen, blotting ink with his pale shirt sleeve.

Kiros leant forwards over the table, at pains to discover whether or not the President was actually doing anything useful. "They'll call it 'Laguna's folly.'" he said. "And writing '_Here Be Dragons_' over all our maps isn't exactly helping us, either."

"They might call it a mistake, but at least it'll be mine." Laguna said. "And there _are_ dragons." He sketched a spiky tail, hand moving surely across the paper. The atlas was already covered with cartoon dragons: dragons running, dragons snarling, dragons eating tiny princesses.

Kiros shook his head and spat out a braid. "Anyway, the idea wasn't yours. If I recall correctly the original plan was conceived fifteen centuries ago." He pulled the chart from beneath his President's doodling hands, quickly rolled it up and stowed it away in a drawer.

Laguna shrugged. "Anyway, how far have we got?"

"_Dear Commander_-" Kiros held up a sheet of paper. It was the formal kind Laguna hated, thick cream coloured parchment watermarked and embossed with the Estharian crest. It creased underneath his dark fingers.

Laguna had graduated from sketching scarlet dragons on a prized thirteenth-century copy of Agnese's _Mappa Mundi _to painting his fingernails red with the same pen. He waved his left hand vigorously in the air to dry the ink and pointed at Kiros's letter with the right. "What's wrong with 'Sir or Madam'?"

Kiros shrugged. "This way we can send the same letter to everyone."

"There's only three Commanders- Trabia, Galbadia and Balamb. Personalise them. It's not like we can't afford an extra three sheets of paper."

Kiros scribbled a note of one of six colour-coded notebooks. "_Dear Commander_." he read.

"_The government of Esthar has embarked upon an ambitious and groundbreaking scheme, the likes of which has never been seen before in our lifetimes._

_Its aim: to end the monster threat in Esthar for once and for all, allowing our city to enter a new age of unimagined prosperity and peace. We propose to eliminate every monster within the bounds of our circling fence, releasing an area of approximately two hundred and fifty thousand square kilometres to be used for agricultural purposes…._"

Laguna stabbed a finger at his aide. "Most of it desert- wait, don't mention that in the letter."

"I haven't." Kiros said dryly. "Let me see. Ah. _The other Gardens have already signed up to this pioneering contract, the likes of which_- "

"You don't have to read out all the flowery bits, okay. You do them fine. Just give me the bare bones."

"_As the hiring party, Esthar City reserves the right to lay down certain contractual conditions._

_One: Payment will be dependent upon Esthar being found monster-free at the missions' completion._

_Two: Payment will take the form of a fixed percentage of Esthar City agricultural profit, to be reviewed at the end of a ten-year period (we suggest five per cent of all net profit, to be shared between the three Gardens in order of size)_"

Laguna shook his head. His silver dogtags jingled. "We'll be lucky."

"Can but try." Kiros said. "_Three: In the unlikely event of Esthar being found to harbour monsters after the contract termination date Esthar City will gain no net profit from the agricultural expansion of former waste land, therefore no payment will be forthcoming._

_Four: The ownership of items found on Estharian soil during the mission is negotiable depending on number and value of said items. _

_The SeeD deployment contract should last, according to calculations, approximately five days. _

_We hope that you will agree to these exceptional terms and join us in finally achieving the maximum potential of our great city and bountiful countryside, etcetera, etcetera…._

_Yours sincerely._

_Laguna Loire, President Of Esthar_."

Kiros lowered the sheet of paper, eyebrows raised. "Plus various codices, appendices, and so on. Laguna? What do you think?"

"Have the other Gardens really agreed?" Laguna asked.

"No." Kiros said reluctantly. He folded the letter in half, then, nervously, into quarters. "But if I tell all the Gardens the other two are involved, they'll come in on it too."

"It's ingenious." Laguna said. "But I'm not sure-"

Ward scrawled on a piece of paper in elegant copperplate. _It's immoral_. The big man was seated inconspicuously in a corner, if a seven foot tall solder carrying a portable anchor could ever be inconspicuous.

"It's intelligent." Kiros said defensively.

Laguna's eyes narrowed, a sign, Kiros thought, that he either had conjunctivitis or was about to say something startlingly intelligent. "Only it sounds like a veiled insult. You know. As if we're saying that the Gardens don't deserve to get paid if they're not good enough to do their job." He fiddled with his shirt sleeves, rolling them down and then up again, leaving stripes of red marker on the cuffs.

"I'm glad." said Kiros. "It did take quite a lot of effort."

Ward mumbled something.

"They _will_ agree!" Laguna retorted, glaring at the large silent man.

"Why should they?" Kiros pointed out.

Laguna swung in his chair. "Because it's a wonderful dream. I admit that even if the plan succeeds beyond our wildest dreams it'll be crazy, fucked up and temporary. But it will have been _done_. Until the next Lunar Cry, maybe for a few hundred years, the people of Esthar will live without fear of monsters. And once we've wiped the monsters from Esthar, it can be done again. In different places. No more fences. No more fear. Children won't have to choose between living inside cities all their life or becoming soldiers just so they can go outside the walls!"

"And." Kiros pointed out cynically, "it stands to make Esthar very, very rich."

"And that." Laguna said. "But that's not the point."

"No, but you have to admit that it helps. We'll have monopoly on all kinds of trading goods. Not just technology." He fixed Laguna with eyes dark as garnets.

Laguna smiled at him. "Sounds like I finally sold you."

"You already did. Now we just have to wait and see what the Gardens think of things."

"They'll agree."

"Want to bet?"

* * *

Seifer Almasy was not in the habit of giving gifts. Ever.

He walked down the corridor with a borrowed kitbag crooked over one shoulder, tossing the finished necklace up into the air and catching it, twisting the chains around his fingers. The jewellery rattled reassuringly against one palm.

The necklace had come up surprisingly well, given Seifer's total lack of interest in jewellery. The stones gleamed in their settings, glued into place with an unpleasant mixture of boiled mantis sinew and Mesmerize horn Seifer had found in Zell's special workbox. With the dents hammered out, clean and polished, it looked much more the kind of thing Quistis would be interested in. Vintage, or at least antique.

It was beginning to dawn on him that Quistis wasn't exactly the easiest person to get presents for. Seifer had never been interested in the contents of women's wardrobes, being considerably more concerned with the contents of their underwear drawers, but he was willing to bet that Quistis's consisted of four or five outfits. Three of them identical peach battle uniforms.

_This,_ he thought, _might be hard_.

As they weren't talking, there were only so many ways he could give her the necklace. There was the anonymous, cowardly, hell-you-know-who-it's-from-anyway route, which was not one which appealed to Seifer. Anonymity wasn't exactly his trademark.

That left two options. One, he could wait until they made up and earn some extra Moomba Scout points for thinking of the present. Even if she secretly hated it any never wore it again, marks would have been awarded for trying. The second option was the up front, yes-I'm-trying-to-get-into-your-pants-again-but-look-it's shiny route, which appealed to Seifer in its sheer directness. Sadly, he calculated his chances of getting anywhere _near_ Quistis's pants again after such a move were minimal.

Seifer shrugged. He stuffed the jewellery into one pocket of his sweatpants and shifted his kitbag on his shoulder, heavy and awkward with borrowed pads. There hadn't been time to change after his duel with Zell. With Seifer's usually lousy luck, they'd left the gym at change-of-lesson time. Cue for the changing rooms to be invaded by half of Garden's cadets.

It wouldn't have bothered Seifer so much if it hadn't been so damn hot. It wasn't like he had anybody left to impress.

It didn't exactly help that the corridor he was walking down was one of the few the mechanics hadn't gotten around to fixing yet. The air tasted hot and dry, like cotton in his mouth, quiet without the constant buzz of ventilation fans. Seifer would have been bothered if he had been remotely interested in Garden's maintenance. It might even have pissed him off a little. But as it was, he just shrugged and carried on.

He took the long way round to his room, sweaty and uncomfortable, and didn't realise where his traitor feet were taking him until he looked up. The burgundy stripe on walls and floor told him that he was in the private block reserved for the bedrooms of full SeeDs. Needless to say, the AC worked here. The halls even smelt differently, pine scent rather than socks and floor polish.

Seifer yanked the necklace from his pocket, half-heartedly wondering about pushing it under Quistis's door. The chain's clasp caught on a small bunch of keycards, their plastic chips bent at the corners, threaded haphazardly onto a tiny ring in no particular order. Seifer untangled the bunch with little dexterity and even less patience. It wasn't until he had returned the necklace to his pocket and began half-heartedly flipping through the chips that he realised he still had Quistis's key.

Seifer's hand stilled. His brain began to work. He still had Quistis's key. Which meant that he could enter her room. Which meant that he could use her shower.

He was almost certain that Quistis wouldn't be keen on the idea, but Seifer had memorised her timetable one long dark night. She wouldn't be back for over two hours. Plenty of time. He might even be able to leave the necklace somewhere unobtrusive, if he could figure out a way that didn't make him look desperate and her too easily impressed.

Seifer slid the keycard in the reader beside Quistis's door. It opened with a hiss on her bare room. Empty, just like he'd thought.

Seifer grinned.

* * *

"Miss?"

Quistis looked up.

Her class, she thought with satisfaction, had improved considerably in the last week and a half. They could now hold rather small knives without cutting their own hands off and use long words like 'disembowelled' in normal conversation.

However, there were always one or two exceptions….

"Miss?"

A small, thin girl tapped Quistis on the elbow. It was about as high as she could reach. She looked about twelve, with limp blond hair and faded blue eyes like sickly cornflowers. She carried her practice knife in both hands as if her fingers were glued to it, which, knowing Noemi's accident-prone tendencies, was entirely possible.

"Miss?"

Quistis considered telling the children, yet again, to call her 'Instructor' and then thought better of it. Simply _Quistis_ was too casual. Instructor was too formal, really. And 'miss' or 'sir' seemed to be some kind of genetic teacher-child thing. Maybe it was encoded into the DNA of everyone under fifteen years of age. "What is it, Noemi?"

The girl held the knife awkwardly behind her back and fidgeted, rubbing each shoe in turn on the back of her spindly calves. She stuttered out a staccato quick-fire sentence. "You-know-when-you-told-us-to-practice-defensive-manouvres-miss?"

"Yes, Noemi?"

"Well, miss-my-defensive-manouvre-got-in-the-way-of-Liddie's-defensive-manouvre. Miss."

"And?" Quistis prompted. She bent down, putting her own face on eye level with the small cadet.

"And-I-think-I-stabbed-her-in-the-leg-miss."

"You were supposed to practice alone." Quistis pointed out.

The girl looked relieved that Quistis hadn't immediately started shouting. She relaxed very slightly. "We were, miss. Together."

"You stabbed her?"

"In the leg, miss."

"Is it deep? You know I taught you about arteries and veins last week. What colour was the blood? How fast is it coming out?"

"Red, miss. And fast, miss. It's kind of…spurting, miss."

Quistis didn't hear the rest of the sentence, because she was already running.

After the blood had been mopped up and the tears had been dried and the cut had been found to be rather small and certainly not an immediate threat to life, she was exhausted. That took up half of her last lesson, an afternoon's technical Silent Kill class. Quistis admitted defeat for the last hour and half and sent the members of class who weren't actually bleeding or fainting to the library on self-study.

Quistis was left alone in an empty gymnasium, a thin trail of blood drying on the sand beside her.

It was typical, she thought. Every time she thought that she was making some progress, with either her work or her private life, something always knocked her back.

Quistis stood for a moment, palm flat on her forehead, her long tails of hair drooping to either side of her face, and then sternly told herself that she was being much too silly. There had always been ups and downs in her life and in her teaching career, ski-slope highs and lows interspersed with long steady patches where she could find good footing.

A sudden image came back to her, four- no, nearly five- years ago, the same training gym. Herself standing demurely, clipboard in hand, struggling to keep her voice level. Squall stood at ease in front of her. Seifer lounged against one of the panelled walls.

_"Squall, because of your impressive skills and your excellent attendance, you will become a SeeD cadet level three, passing with an A."_

_"Seifer, because you have a certain level of natural skill and because I never want to see you again, I will pass you with a D-minus_."

She'd thought it the end of the world the next term, when she was assigned the same students again. It had been nearly unheard of for a teacher to be assigned to the same group two semesters running. Judging by his expression, at the time Seifer had thought the same.

It was safe to assume that he had changed his mind in the intervening half-decade.

She sighed.

_Things will pass_, she thought. The children she was teaching would rise through the SeeD cadet hierarchy until they graduated at eighteen, hopefully with all their limbs and most of their sanity. And he and Seifer would, she supposed, either make up or kill each other.

Selphie's words came back to her.

_N__othing has to be as complicated as you think._

Maybe it didn't, Quistis thought.

She turned and left the gymnasium, hair spilling loose from her bun and flying behind her as she walked. She had made her decision. And right now, she wanted to relax and maybe wash some of the blood from her hands. The cadets were in the library, Liddie was in the infirmary recovering from the shock of having a single suture inserted in the calf muscle of her leg, and Quistis needed time out.

Quistis reached up and redid her ponytail, twisting the stray locks into a neat bun. She walked to her room with sure and determined steps.

It wasn't empty.

Quistis knew that as soon as she walked through the door. Her room was neat by virtue of habit, a strict upbringing and a distinct lack of possessions. It was still more or less neat. The shower was on in the adjacent bathroom suite, and there was a pile of clothes shucked untidily on the floor. Clothes that she recognised.

Quistis rolled her eyes and threw the bathroom door open. A cloud of steam billowed out and she coughed, swatting clouds of vapour away from her face.

The thick fog of condensation in the tiny room might have been one of the reasons why Seifer didn't notice her at first. The cubicles were the kind with sliding doors instead of curtains, and the doors were etched with Garden's trademark swirling art nouveau designs. This meant that Quistis could see only bits of him, which for some reason she found immensely attractive.

She leant back against the heated towel rail and watched as Seifer rubbed his hands through his hair. He was whistling tunelessly, still blissfully unaware of her presence.

Quistis felt slightly voyeuristic, just for a second. But why should she? It was _her_ shower. And it was _her_ boyfriend, though that subject, as always, was open to debate.

Quistis nudged the bathroom door quietly with her foot, to let some of the steam out. She stared at the cubicle until Seifer poured half a bottle of her favourite shampoo into the palm of his hand and she decided that she'd had enough.

"That," she said, "is expensive." She reached for the power switch and slammed the shower off, leaving Seifer with a handful of rapidly-subsiding foam.

He whirled around, shot her what Quistis thought was probably the wildest double-take in the history of the Garden and grabbed for the nearest object available. Which, unfortunately, was the soap.

It was certainly the most surprised Quistis had seen Seifer look since he killed Odin in the Lunatic Pandora, but he recovered well.

She dragged the sliding door open and gave him her sweetest, most acid-bitter smile.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Seifer attempted to stare her down. It didn't work, either because he was naked except for a small piece of rapidly-disintegrating soap or because the bathroom was most definitely Quistis's territory. "You mind? I'm trying to wash."

He didn't look embarrassed-it would take more than that, Quistis knew- but he did look slightly ashamed of himself. There was a dark bruise on one of his shoulders and there were soapsuds in his ears.

"Might I remind you that you're in my bathroom?"

"Yeah. So? Knew that. If you just came in to point that out, turn the water back on on your way out the damn door."

Quistis raised an eyebrow. She hadn't expected her resolution to be tested so soon, but here he was and here she was.

_If you want him……it's that easy_

She sighed, pulled the bathroom door closed with the toe of her boot and unclipped the long gloves of her training uniform. The silk slithered down her arm and bunched at her wrist. Quistis raised her hand to her mouth and pulled the fingers of the glove off with her teeth. Condensation prickled on her skin, she spat the glove out and went to work on the second one. As she dropped her second glove on the floor and began to undo the zipper of her vest she noticed that Seifer was staring at her as if she'd walked in and morphed into Ultimecia in front of his very eyes.

"Quis? What the fuck are you doing?"

Quistis unzipped her vest and let the front fall open. She unbuckled her left, the leather damp and rough against her hands. First the upper belt, then the lower one. They fell to the floor with a thump.

"Joining you." She could have said _trying to prove everyone wrong. Including my ._

_brain._

Seifer raised an eyebrow. "Are you _serious_?

"You don't want me to?"

"Fuck, yeah." He said it like it was obvious.

There were drops of water on his eyelashes. Quistis wanted to pull him towards her and kiss them away. He'd let her, she knew. She wedged the heel of one boot with the toe of the other, levered the right boot off and hopped on one leg as she pulled at the other.

Seifer leaned against the shower door, arms folded across his chest. He looked to have given up on the soap. "What happened?"

Quistis kicked her last boot off. It landed in a heap underneath the towel rail, followed by her peach silk vest and after that, her skirt. "Nothing."

"Something must've."

"You're spoiling the mood." Quistis said. She suddenly felt foolish and damp, stood barefoot on her bathroom mat dressed only in a black bra and pants. Condensation beaded on her arms and in her hair.

Seifer looked her up and down. "Not that I'm complaining, but this isn't like you."

It was Quistis's turn to cross her arms over her chest. Her gaze strayed to the towel rail, only to find that all her towels had been dropped in a heap on the floor. "I made a decision. And that's all."

"I'm not complaining." Seifer said. He looked slightly confused, as if he didn't understand why she was doing this and didn't much care. "Hey, come here. And turn the water back on."

"You're not exactly reacting the way I thought."

Seifer gave her a look that was half amused and half frustrated. "Last time I saw you, it looked like you wanted to scratch my eyes out. Next thing I know, you turn up naked in my shower. I'm kind of confused"

Technically, I'm naked in _my_ shower." Quistis pointed out. A smile threatened to put paid to her scowl. "So what now?"

"I'm not _that_ confused."

Quistis smiled, a real one this time. She climbed out of her remaining clothing and hit the power button.

By mutual consent they both showered first. The cubicle was large enough to accommodate two people, provided they stood extremely close together. It was also large enough to fit in two people standing fairly far apart, provided they were anorexic midgets. They managed.

Quistis stood pressed against the glass, head crooked to one side to avoid the shower unit. The glazed wall tiles were cold on her bare back. She stared at Seifer's back, caught sight of her reflection in the cubicle door out of the corner of her eye and made a mental resolution to do some more sit-ups. Clearly two hundred first thing in the morning wasn't enough…

She raised one arm to wring the water out to her hair and nearly elbowed Seifer in the throat. He scrubbed his hands over his scalp one more time and turned to face her. His hair was the colour of wet sand. He looked younger and very, very wet.

Quistis smiled. Seifer's charm was calculated: he used it to get what he wanted. It was an asset and he used it like he would any other. The times Quistis knew he really liked her was when he wasn't bothering to charm her.

She looked up as Seifer tapped her on the shoulder. He ducked his head down under the shower head, water beading on his eyelashes. Quistis had a sudden urge to reach up and kiss the water off. He'd let her, she knew.

Quistis leant forwards, brought her face under the full force of the shower jet and choked. She fought her way out from under the shower, spitting water, until she felt cool ceramic tiles at her back.

Seifer grinned at her until Quistis placed both her hands at mid-chest level and pushed and he nearly fell over.

"Hey, turn round." His voice turned teasing.

Quistis lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

"Aw, come on."

"You're such a gentleman." She gave him a sidelong, teasing glance and kicked the half-finished bottle of shampoo with seventeen secret herbs and spices to the side of the shower tray with her bare heel. "Maybe I should go and get dressed."

"Uh, no." Seifer said. "You're not going anywhere." He wasn't sure whether or not the comment would piss Quistis off after he'd said it, but she just looked wet and faintly amused. Water ran in a thick stream over her body, twisting off to run in tiny rivulets down her back and between her small breasts. She turned around, anyway, loose long hair the colour of wet sand trailing down her spine.

Seifer bent his head over Quistis's right shoulder and looked down at her body, admiring the view. The line of the tendons in her neck swept down in a long curve right to the ridge of her collarbone and the rounded shapes of her breasts. She tilted her head back and drops of water slid down her throat to collect in the hollow of her neck. Her skin was very pale, all except her shoulders which were an angry red colour which reminded him of a scalded chocobo. She placed her palms against the glass side of the shower.

Seifer bit the back of her neck, arms round her waist. His other hand targeted her breasts.

Presently Quistis twisted around and wrapped her arms around him, blurry with the falling water and the fact that she'd had to leave her glasses outside. The air was charged, heavy with moisture. She found it difficult to breathe and wondered whether it was just the humidity or the circumstances. The warm water suddenly seemed far too hot as she reached up to the shower unit. Her fingers skated across wet plastic as she fumbled for the temperature dial.

Seifer must have mistaken her movement for a desire to turn the shower off. His hand landed on hers, heavy, fingers sliding in between hers. Quistis gasped and closed her hand so tightly that she could feel the pressure of his bones on the calloused flesh of her palm, knotted together. He smoothed one hand down over her hips and buried his face in her shoulder, their feet slipping on the vinyl flooring.

Quistis stood on the tips of her toes on the raised coving bordering the shower rail, and thought herself lucky that they weren't that different in height. Selphie and Irvine would never have managed it.

She reached up and slid a finger down Seifer's scar, biting her lip as she did so. The tip of her nail traced from the inside corner of his right eye almost to her hairline, skin tense under her fingers. Seifer watched her face, not her hand, his eyes serious, touched with something which could have been cynicism, or just amusement. When she had finished he brought both her hands up inside her arms, batting her arm away, took Quistis's face in both of his hands and kissed her. Hard. Quistis could feel the palms of his hands pressing against her jawbone, fingers spread wide over each cheek. She wrapped her own hands around his shoulders and continued the kiss for as long as she could. Seifer's hands travelled up into her hair, fine strands wrapping around her fingers. Thin streams of water sluiced her shoulders, pouring down her spine and between them both, sluicing off sweat as soon as it appeared. She was never sure which one of them pulled back first. Maybe it didn't matter.

Quistis reached down and Seifer slipped both hands underneath her and lifted her up. His body was hard against hers, stocky but nowhere near fat. She gasped, swallowing spray. The drum of droplets falling on the plastic shower tray drowned out any noises.

They ended up sitting on the base of the shower, legs intertwined, one or other of them blocking the plughole as water rose up around them slowly, threatening to flood the bathroom floor. Quistis tilted her head back, feeling water trickle down the lines of her throat. The ventilator whirred.

Seifer crooked one elbow behind his head and sighed, the kind of sigh that precedes total relaxation. He smiled at her, a real smile, nothing cynical or jagged or threatening about it, and Quistis smiled back.

They left the bathroom about the time most students finished their lessons and lay talking in Quistis's bed, sheets rucked around them. Seifer sprawled over the mattress, one hand underneath the pillows, the other around Quistis's narrow shoulders, however much she squirmed. It was one of the things she liked least about him, if she was honest, there was always a slight hint of possessiveness. Theirs was clearly never going to be the kind of relationship where they discussed Proust first thing in the morning, lying between starched linen sheets while listening to classical music. Quistis felt fleetingly sad for all those missed futures before reminding herself that they had been replaced with really great sex and the shared joy of killing.

They spoke quietly, voices hushed although it wasn't late.

"Did you know I went to see Edea?"

"No."

"Well, anyway, it reminded me of…things. I thought that we don't know what's going to happen. So I decided to make the most of what I've got."

Seifer sighed and yawned, so widely that he threatened to unhinge his jaw." Wise choice." There were bruises on both their arms and he felt guilty for a second. Some time, that, keeping at it under the shower until Quistis's small daily allowance of hot water ran out and they were both tired and half-drowned. Right now he really wanted to sleep, an unusual and rather pleasant feeling. But he had a hunch the size of a small country that Quistis wanted to talk about something.

Quistis poked him in the ribs. "You know the four stages of dealing with trauma, right?"

"No." Seifer said. He had some idea, but Quistis got off on feeling intelligent and the last thing he wanted to do was spoil the mood.

"Okay. Denial, anger, guilt and acceptance."

"So?"

"So Edea never really recovered. She's stuck with guilt. And she has been for two years."

"I've seen that home video. At the party. She seemed fine then." And she had, smiling politely and handing out the cocktail sausages. The perfect asset, the co-commander's wife.

"She was. It happened gradually. She was a bit quiet, at first. Cid took her back to Centra for a holiday, before he took his place back as Headmaster."

"But Squall's headmaster now." Seifer pointed out. "Not Cid."

"Exactly. Edea never returned for the autumn term. And she's lived in Centra ever since. She's almost normal, some days. But whenever Cid's away, she gets worse."

"Worse? Worse how?

"Worse." Quistis said. "It's as if she's on the far side of the moon, for all we can do for her. And she changed, yesterday."

"You went to see her. Why didn't you tell me?"

"We weren't talking. And you didn't ask. I saw them both. Edea, and Cid."

There was a long silence.

"Is he still her knight?" Seifer asked bluntly

"I thought you were." Quistis said, puzzled.

"I don't know. I can't feel her." He looked frustrated, as if attempting to put something into words that couldn't be explained. Seifer was never very eloquent at the best of times. He started to say something, coughed, then tried again. "Edea's always been a sorceress. Right? And Cid's always been her knight."

"Always?"

"Since we were kids. Could be someone else, but I'm betting it's him. Only thing was, Ultimecia's-was-a sorceress. And I guess I was her knight. Only thing was, 'cause she took over Edea's body it was like both of them together for a while." He sighed. "Can't explain it."

"I don't know whether to be reassured or slightly disturbed."

Seifer frowned, thoughtfully. "Anyway. You got it wrong."

"What?"

"There's five stages of stress. Denial, anger, guilt, acceptance, and-" He paused. "And bargaining."

"Just one thing." Quistis said. "There isn't anyone there to bargain with."

* * *

Note:

Hey, lots of reviews. And if you're the person who emailed me about archiving my fic, then please email me back. I accidentally deleted a page-worth of email from my inbox and I think your addy was in there somewhere, 'cause I can't find it. Duh. But yeah, sure. As long as it doesn't involve too much effort.

Reviews:

Altol: note, they now have pads. Playing nice for once. Heh.

Asphalt Angel: many thinks for the compliment.

Breaker-one: the freaky dream was a old scene that wasn't in GB: mainly 'cause after I wrote GB I did one hell of a long walk myself, and I felt I had a better idea of what walking that far would be like WITH it being freezing cold, and monsters, and soldiers -fucking awful, that's what..

Cyberwing: yeah, I try on the updates. Now I know why I don't usually update over the summer though.

Emily:I try and keep all my characters 'in'. Don't know if I succeed. Thanks very much.

Ghost140: I wasn't flamed and I'd never change the way I write, but hey, I do write moderate sex and some pretty hardcore violence and gore. I think it was me reading a fic where the author had put, in big letters at the top, something like PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE EASILY SHOCKED on top of a chapter describing a battlefield, and I read it without realising what the bit was that I was supposed to be shocked by, then thought 'hey, I've done much worse.'

Iudex Acerbus: Seifer's uh, 'relationship' with Edea is something that will be coming up, so stay tuned.

Jack Hanek: thanks for all the reviews, d00d. Hope you didn't mind the crit, keep writing!

Lain of the weird: I think it's pg13, but, you know, the pr0n purge. I too have a healthy collection of pre Purge fics by some of my favourite authors, and I really don't see what all the fuss was about.

Nynaeve77: ta. I also think the rating's fine.

Seventhe: the ff7 cross-dressing scene was fucking awesome. My sister was playing it, and she was like, hey, you've got to see this, and I was like, no way, and it's made me get all incoherent and it's five months since I saw it. Almost as dodgy as the bit in ffX2 I'm playing at the mo where you have to give Leblanc a back massage…

Sheep: the eurovision analogue was just one of those things. I wanted a concert, and guess what I was watching at the time? At least the good old UK didn't QUITE come last…

Sulou:no, go for the cat! Cats rule.There will b a scary monster ass-kicking bit as always, but not for a while, and there's all sorts of fun stuff to come before that.

Superviolist: The scary bit is that I try hard to keep Seifer and Quistis's relationship as 'normal' and real-life as possible-

Kate

(first we take Manhattan/then we take Berlin)


	10. Chapter Nine: Campaign Against Myself

Recovering The Satellites

* * *

And we drank,

Ever noticed how drinking's like war?

Cup of troops oe'r the gums

Till the end of my health I campaign against myself

Armed with bourbons and scotches and rums.

Moxy Fruvous: Drinking Song

* * *

I love you more,

Than I did the week before

I discovered alcohol

-That's what I'm talking about.

Barenaked Ladies: Alcohol

Chapter Nine: Campaign Against Myself

* * *

_I wonder what he meant? _Quistis thought. 

She pulled herself up in bed, double-checking the alarm clock as she did so. Red numerals blinked at her implacably. It was still morning, still early, still quiet, and Seifer was still gone.

Quistis reached up to scratch dried shampoo from the roots of her hair. She winced, carefully explored knots with her fingers, and reached for her hairbrush. She brushed her hair, slowly, one stroke at a time.

It hadn't really been an argument. Seifer's comment had come from nowhere, a missed blow in their permanent verbal duelling, and Quistis still didn't understand it.

"_What?"_

_"There's five stages of stress. Denial, anger, guilt, acceptance, and_ _bargaining."_

"_Just one thing."_ she'd said, puzzled. "_There isn't anyone there to bargain with."_

The conversation had stopped there, in a murmured _letsnottalkaboutthisnow_ and a tangle of bedclothes. But now it was morning and Quistis wanted to know what he'd meant. It might just have been a random comment that made no sense. Hyne knew that Seifer was never short of those. But it might have been more.

Quistis frowned. She put down her hairbrush and blinked in the hot, golden light rushing in through the open window, illuminating the rumpled bed. She'd forgotten to close the curtains last night. In fact, she'd forgotten most of the rest of the world.

_Ah, well._

Seifer wasn't around to ask. Quistis would just have to wait. That he had left at such an early hour was unusual, but part of Quistis refused to be surprised. Unless he had been abducted, which she doubted- after all, nobody wanted him except her- his early departure was a surprisingly tactful move.

And it had worked.

Quistis yawned and covered her mouth with an open palm. She'd certainly slept well. It would have been nice if Seifer had done the same but she had a nasty feeling that he'd spent the early hours of the morning in exactly the same fashion as he'd spent every night in her bed. Sat up until two or three or four in the morning, smoking his way through an endless supply of cigarettes or dreaming of things he wouldn't even admit to her. The only change to his routine last night, Quistis had a feeling, had been the room number.

Or maybe he'd slept just as well as she had.

Quistis smiled. It had been good sex. Water all over the place, bruised hipbones and one exhausted night's sleep that felt like falling down into black feathers, warm and comforting. The footprints on her carpet had dried, no wonder, in this heat, but she could hear the extractor fan still running in the bathroom, choking itself dry and using electricity the Garden couldn't afford. She felt as relaxed as if she'd slept a whole ten hours, straight through. Come to think of it, she probably had. They'd missed dinner, or rather hadn't missed it at all. They'd both been far too busy to even notice.

Quistis swung her legs out of bed and wiggled her toes deeply into the thin woven mat. She reached for her glasses in their usual place next to the clock, objects blurring in her vision as the sunlight caught at the corner of her eyes. Only her glasses weren't there.

Their absence wasn't surprising, really, Quistis thought, given her little impromptu striptease last night. She didn't know where her underwear had ended up, much less her spectacles.

_Oh, Hyne did I really do that?_ her internal auditor needled.

_Yes, you really did do that._

_And that._

_Surely….?_

_That, too._

Quistis set her chin resolutely, ignoring the way the world seemed a little fuzzy round its edges. She bunched the sheet up around her and climbed out of bed, looping the hem to throw folds of cotton over one arm. Her own personal code of modesty usually prohibited walking around one's room stark naked, just in case there were any Trepies with telescopes watching. And after last night's ….performance, she was definitely behind on the modesty stakes. It was time to earn some virtue points instead of starring in a remake of _Debby Does Dollet_.

She opened the bathroom door onto a scene of carnage and mayhem.

The extractor fan whirred on the wall. A pile of towels lay twisted on the grimy tiles, topped with a dried cake of soap. A thin trail of expensive shampoo ran from a half-empty bottle thrown in a corner of the shower cubicle to the central drain. The room smelt of water, mould and scented soap.

Quistis's glasses lay underneath the towel rail, their lenses frosted with condensation. She picked them up, shook water droplets off with a flick of her fingers and settled them on her nose. The objects around her swam into focus, sharpening slowly as her eyes adjusted. She noted analytically that the scene only looked worse without fuzzy edges.

Quistis reached up to flick the fan off, listening as it stuttered into grateful silence. Her bare toes brushed against a pile of her best extra-thick towels, crumpled in a damp heap on the floor. Peach silk and black cotton poked out between the heavy folds; Quistis's entire outfit from yesterday, intertwined with the towelling. Equally damp. Equally crumpled.

Quistis knelt down on the cold tiles and hiked the trailing ends of her impromptu sarong over one shoulder. She stuffed the outfit into a cotton wash bag, smoothing one finger over the marks marring the fabric. After that, she cleaned the shower tray, sprayed down the tiled walls with cleaning fluid and the grouting with mould-removing foam. Finally she hung her soaked through brassiere and pants on the towel rail to dry and pronounced the bathroom fit for duty with forty minutes to go before breakfast hour. She'd have plenty of time to get ready.

Quistis gave the bathroom one last critical glance and stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind her.

_Attempting_ to close the door behind her-

It wouldn't shut.

Quistis flipped the free ends of her sheet into a makeshift toga. She bent down and ran one hand carefully under the small gap between the bathroom floor and the door to check for any small missed items of clothing.

She expected to find one of Seifer's discarded socks. He had a distressing habit of leaving them about her room, and careful and surreptitious questioning of Quistis's friends had failed to solve the mystery of whether sock-leaving was a Normal Man Habit. But it wasn't a sock.

Quistis's fingers touched cool metal. She twisted her hand, wedging it tightly under the door, reached for the object and yanked it out.

Silver wire and gems gleamed brightly in her palm, wound into a crumpled ball.

Quistis frowned and examined the tangled chains more closely.

It looked like a necklace.

Unravelled, it _was_ a necklace. An elegant and expensive-looking necklace. An elegant and expensive necklace which certainly wasn't one of Quistis's. SeeD life didn't lend itself to collecting jewellery.

Quistis had cleaned the bathroom the previous morning, just like she always did. Only two people had entered her room since then-her and-

Seifer.

_Surely not-_

The jewellery _had_ to be Seifer's.

She gave the necklace a second glance, then a third. The chain seemed several thousand times too feminine ever to belong to Seifer, which led to the question of why he'd dropped it. And Quistis could guess.

She touched the stones one by one, slowly, identifying each. Aura. Moonstones. And dark blue wizard stones, bordering the central golden gem. Quistis recognised the Seed colours instantly. Archaic, but apt. Seifer's choice, no doubt. She wondered for a second if the choice of stones had been intentional. Maybe. Maybe not.

Silver gleamed against her pale skin as Quistis held the necklace up, admiring the setting.

_Hmm._

The jewellery was attractive, really. Practical. And certainly a great deal more elegant than any other gift Seifer had even given her, though that list was very short. The list of genuine, sincere presents was far shorter. Absent, in fact.

Quistis stared at the necklace. One hand crept to her throat, imagining how it would look. She touched each jewel again and they glowed softly at her touch, giving off an aura of para-magic so strong she could taste it like silver lying heavily on the back of her tongue. Shiva purred like a cat in the depths of Quistis's brain as she sensed the spell embedded in each gem.

The sound vibrated through Quistis's skull softly, a gentle bumblebee hum. It reminded her that she'd forgotten to unjunction her GFs. They were preying on her mind. She was aware that she had been relying on them far too much lately, certainly over and above the informal guidelines laid down by the Garden authorities. Time to get rid, at least for a while.

Quistis closed her eyes and touched one finger to her temple. Images swam on the canvas of her closed eyelids; Siren's purple-tipped wings, Shiva's smooth pale skin, exactly the same shade as the moonstones in Seifer's necklace.

She sighed.

Quistis had always made a point of refusing all gifts from all of her boyfriends. She took nothing and returned all presents, opened but unused. The gesture had originally been designed for one of her more overgenerous suitors, back in her younger days before she'd learned diplomacy. Quistis liked to think that it made a point, that she wanted nothing from them but their company and occasionally their presence in her bed. Although the pushy boyfriend had long since disappeared, Quistis's rule had remained.

It had taken her five years of fully-fledged SeeD membership to learn the most important rule of all. Sometimes rules weren't always rules. Sometimes they were only guidelines.

She looked at the necklace in her hand.

She'd never expected to have to refuse a gift of Seifer's. He just wasn't the type. The ex-knight noticed what she was wearing only if it was short or tight or completely absent. He rarely gave her compliments except in the heat of sex, and although he never called her beautiful there were a couple of times she'd caught him watching her with a kind of protectiveness and awe that might have been analogous. And he'd certainly never tried to give her a serious present before.

Quistis sighed. She made herself a tiny cup of teeth-meltingly strong espresso. That done, she knotted the sheet up under her armpits, threw the window open wide and sat on its sill, staring at the cigarette ash left on the carpet like she was trying to decipher a secret code. The dark, rich scent of the coffee made her salivate, and she downed three cups before she decided she was rational enough to make a sensible, informed decision.

_An empty room, and the necklace, either tossed casually upon the bathroom floor or lost out of a trouser pocket…… _

_Hmm._

She took her whip out from the wardrobe and reached for a tin of leather polish, swinging round on the sill to face at the purple Balamb mountains with her legs crossed neatly at the ankles. There was a cool breeze on her skin which raised goose pimples on her bare arms. The wind diminished as she worked and the early morning mist cleared to a featureless blue. The far mountain ridge shimmered in a dusty heat haze.

It was going to be hot. Again.

Quistis frowned as she scooped up handfuls of waxy polish yellow as honey and worked them into the surface of the whip until it lay supple in her hands. Once the whole six feet was shining with polish and flexible as ribbon, she allowed herself to pick the necklace up one last time. Streaks of polish clung to her hands and she rubbed at them futilely before draping the necklace over her bright hair. The half-opened window reflected her image and Quistis squinted at it, eyes half-closed against the fierce heat. She looked like a princess in a fairytale…

_Don't be stupid._

She smiled in self-mockery and let the stones dribble down her forehead into her palm. It was time to get ready, and she didn't have time for decisions. She should

return the gift to Seifer. There were half a dozen reasons why she shouldn't keep it.

_One: it probably isn't even his (and if it is, he most likely stole it from someone)_

_Number two: assuming that it really is Seifer's, he might not even have meant it for me._

_Three: I don't need any more jewellery. Not even necklaces in the SeeD colours. Not even necklaces in the SeeD colours with __Para__ magic hidden in the stones. _

_Four: Jewellery isn't practical; therefore, I don't need it (see also three)_

_Five: He didn't give me it personally. _

_Six: it's not really my kind of thing anyway….._

Quistis stopped. She was aware that her list of reasons was becoming increasingly tenuous, and she didn't much care.

_There is no way I can accept this….._she thought. And then she picked the necklace up and wore it anyway. The gems sparkled darkly against her most understated and ordinary outfit.

As she walked to the canteen, Quistis discovered quite quickly that her attempt to dress the jewellery down hadn't worked. Oh, nobody noticed, nobody batted an eyelid, but Quistis _never_ wore jewellery. She felt overdressed and self-conscious. The necklace burnt against her skin, a scarlet letter….

"Hey."

Quistis spun.

Seifer raised one hand in a lazy wave. He sauntered towards her in a kind of you-have-to-be-at-work-in-fifteen minutes-and-I-don't-have-to-be kind of way, ignoring all the other SeeDs hurrying to breakfast with a casual insouciance.

Quistis reached up to cover the necklace with a guilty hand. She stopped herself at the last moment and managed a weak "Good morning." in reply.

"Not a bad night." Seifer shot back. He gave her a bright and unmistakeably filthy grin, the kind that implied to any watchers-and there were several-multiple chapters of the Kama Sutra, a tin of golden syrup, and possibly handcuffs. And then his smiling eyes wandered back to the necklace. His grin vanished.

The look in his eyes told Quistis that she'd been right. The necklace was Seifer's, and he had been planning to give it her, and-

"What's the matter?"

Seifer shrugged. "I didn't mean to leave it." He shifted, looking suddenly awkward, and uneasy with it. "It was supposed to be for some other time."

Quistis raised her eyebrows. "Why?"

"Would've looked bad to give it you last night."

"Bad?" Quistis asked. "How could it possibly look bad?"

Seifer looked at her like it was perfectly obvious. "Too 'so long, and thanks for all the sex.'"

Quistis's brain railroaded itself into a brick wall. She groaned silently and bit her tongue. She had forgotten Seifer's ability to ruin a perfectly good compliment in five seconds flat. Still, at least he had tried.

"Well, it was in the scrap bin. Nothing special."

She resisted the impulse to grab him by the back of the neck and pound his head on the wall.

Seifer spread both hands in an expression of injured innocence. It didn't suit him. "What?"

"Do you have any idea-" Quistis said "how insulting that sounds?"

"Insulting?"

Quistis sighed. She quite liked the necklace, but she couldn't help thinking that she could have told Seifer she hated it and he'd just shrug and take it from her. From what she'd learned, possessions didn't matter much to Seifer. He preferred power. "Never mind."

"Looks nice."

"Thanks."

"You like it?"

"Love it."

Seifer's grin returned in full force. "Good." He hugged her and then pulled her closer, one hand cupping the back of her neck. At first, Quistis almost pulled away, uncharacteristically awkward in the midst of so many cadets. Seifer most have sensed her sudden insecurity, because his grip loosened. His hand tracked the line of her collarbone, tracing the intricate meshwork of the necklace.

Quistis consciously disarmed her defences. She smiled into his neck and went along with the kiss anyway, because it was what he wanted. Seifer had an exhibitionist streak several miles wide, something which Quistis lacked. Even so, she managed to almost forget the hurrying crowds around them.

They broke away after several seconds. Quistis became aware that she was grinning like a fool. She smiled apologetically and tapped her watch, communicating without words. Seifer smiled in return, a softer grin than usual, and gave her a one-shouldered shrug that said _I'd like to spend all day in bed with you, but shit happens_.

_It's called a timetable_. Quistis thought.

She watched as he shrugged again and pushed away through the crowds, one hand playing with the jewellery. And then she pulled herself together, marshalled her hands to her sides into a proper SeeD posture and tucked the necklace under her collar.

She found Rinoa and Selphie in the cafeteria. Rinoa was busy pushing half a spoonful of milk and maybe a dozen raisins around on her plate. As Quistis sat down she checked her watch, gave them both an apologetic smile and a wave of a napkin, got up and left.

Selphie was sprawled on the table next to her, arms folded underneath her head. She didn't appear to notice Rinoa's hasty exit. The remnants of a toxic-looking fried breakfast lay spread over the table next to her. Quistis winced. She had settled for fruit and a glass of water so cold the ice-cubes clinked.

"Men", she said, half under her breath, "are idiots."

Selphie rolled over and grinned up at Quistis lazily. "What did Seifer do to you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? That _is_ terrible."

"I thought you were asleep." Quistis said.

"Oh no. I never sleep when there's the chance of an interesting conversation."

"Really?"

"Really. Ooh, nice necklace."

"It's practical." Quistis said defensively.

Selphie glanced down at the pockets of her yellow dress. Each pocket was sewn into compartments for different battle items. Each one could hold as many as five or ten stones. "Uh, yeah."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

* * *

"This thing's fucked."

Seifer spoke mainly to himself as he yanked dry dust-shrouded tubes of insulated cardboard from a grille in the Training Centre. He'd been working for only thirty minutes and there was already fifteen feet of air conditioning duct vent coiled around his feet like the innards of a disembowelled monster. The air was close and hot and it stank of monster guano. The fact that he was lying on his back, half-wedged under an AC unit in the Training Centre foyer intensified the smell. Methane sank, and there were some damn big monsters in the building.

The building just in front of him. The building which he wasn't allowed into. Squall's third rule; _no fighting_. The fourth, too; _no weapons_.

Seifer reached for a spanner and the hilt of the tool fit into his hand as neatly as Hyperion's hilt. He tried not to think about the sword. After all, he had a training session with Zell to look forward to in half an hour. Two years ago he'd have given any suggestion of duelling with pads and wooden swords the contempt it so richly deserved and now he was…..hell, he was _anticipating_ their duels.

_WHAM._

Seifer swore as he hit his thumb. He lay back, stuffing the injured finger into his mouth and risking instant poisoning. He needed something else to think about, he decided, something beside the stink of guano and the job to hand and the smooth taste of nicotine (mixed now with blood) in his mouth.

_Quistis….._

Seifer's mental image of the woman he would swear wasn't his girlfriend had reset to default mode: in other words, naked. He enjoyed the vision for perhaps three seconds before it was replaced with a memory of the way she'd looked when he'd told her about the necklace's origins; fully clothed, her gaze a few degrees centigrade away from freezing.

_Women.__ Huh._

She'd liked the necklace, anyway.

Seifer took his finger from his mouth and reached for a tool. His hand brushed the mousetrap machine. The device was squatted over half his toolbox, but at the touch of his hand it obediently moved away with a soft beep.

The stapler had evolved considerably since Squall had thrown it down the disposal unit, in ways that its creator Dr Odine wouldn't have even considered. Seifer still wasn't quite sure what it could do. Most of the weapons systems were offline, and in a school filled with curious and heavily armed children it was probably just as well

He rolled on his side to rest for a moment and to shake the feeling back into his arms. The machine sensed the movement and beeped questioningly.

The AI inside the stapler had been corrupted by the damage it had received before it came to him, and it had never been too bright to start with. It had been easy for Seifer to bribe Chy into mending the little robot. The mechanic had spliced the microcomputer with a self-repairing cleaner bot from Garden's sewer passages. He'd filled in all the holes with the remnants of a fried biomechanical SAM-08G dino cerebrum. Seifer had no idea what this meant in real terms, but the machine worked. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, but it was in some ways a substitute for Hyperion, a substitute for the repairs and tinkering and endless tiny upgrades he'd lavished on the gunblade. The only difference was that the weapon had had sleek and beautiful lines and the machine looked like it had been trodden on by a T-rex.

Seifer angled his head to prevent the cigarette from burning his own eyes out. The glowing embers landed on the shoulder of his T shirt and ate through to his skin in a moment.

_Shit._

Because of the cigarette and his position, it was some time before he noticed the group of children. There were a few of them, all about fifteen, all hanging round the enclosure of scuffed grass and chain linked fence which made up the Training Centre's atrium. If Seifer had been in a civilian town he'd have ignored them completely, but the kids were SeeDs so he kept half an eye on them and half an eye on his work as he began to stuff plastic tubing back into the unit.

He'd almost finished before he heard the voice.

"Hey, mister?"

Seifer rolled his eyes. He squinted up from his awkward position at the nearest teenager, silhouetted sharply against the bright lights. "What?"

"Aren't you Almasy?"

Seifer ignored him. He was used to questions from kids. He knew those kids, and he'd never seen any of them before in his life Hell, he'd _been_ one of them. Bored, and angry at nothing.

The cadet fell silent, unsure of how to react to Seifer's non-compliance. Someone laughed from the bunch of children, and was as quickly hushed.

Seifer watched as the kid glanced towards his own posse and seemed to gather some resolve. He wore a tattoo on his forearm, a dagger and skull drawn inexpertly in biro. Seifer would have bet that he had to wash it off every night in case his squad commander saw it.

"Didn't you, like, fuck up so badly you're not allowed to carry weapons, even, in case you kill someone?"

Seifer gave the comment the reply it deserved, which was nothing. Hell, he'd been insulted by _professionals. _And he was well aware of the general SeeD opinion of him, which was that he required either a psychiatrist or an exorcist or, failing that, ten years hard labour somewhere dark and unhygienic. Hypocrites, all of them, people who disapproved because instead of killing large amounts of people for a great deal of money he'd killed a few people for not very much.

The crowd of children chattered behind him, poking each other in the back and egging each other on. They all sported cadet haircuts so new that several had tan lines halfway down their forehead from forgotten fringes.

It was a pity, Seifer though, that they were five years too young, several inches too short and with far too inferior weapons to offer much in the way of new and exciting challenges.

"Didn't you kill so many people in the wars, and you didn't even notice?"

Seifer tightened a bolt with a particularly vicious twist. "I noticed." he said in a tone of voice which would have had most of the SeeDs who actually knew him running for cover. He cast an eye around for security cameras, and came up with an answer that he liked. Out of shot. Completely.

_How the hell does Quistis put up with this shit without grabbing one and tearing its head off?_

"Hey, move on. You're blocking the hallway. That's against rule 54602." Seifer snapped. He grinned, his own voice reminding him of the Disciplinary committee, years ago, of their list and their stupid rules. There had been so many. Seifer had spent his first evening in charge of the Disciplinary Committee with the SeeD manual and then decided that there were so many rules nobody would even notice if he made some up. And the amazing thing was, you could stand there and quote five lines of unmitigated bullshit at cadets, and they would believe you.

Apart from that these didn't.

"That's not in the rules."

Seifer scowled. "I wouldn't bet on it. You have to know all the rules before you break them." He finished securing the AC hatch and slid out from under the unit.

"It's _not_."

"How do you know?"

"The rules only go up to three thousand."

"Including clauses and subclauses." another cadet piped up.

"Fuck the clauses and subclauses. And fuck you. Now; leave me the hell alone."

"Isn't swearing against the rules?"

And Seifer knew it was, most specifically regulations 457, 567, 876 and the rule in between _SeeD cadets are forbidden to wear pink tulle on missions_ and the one about not throwing parties of more than twenty people in your dorm room.

Normally he'd have automatically jumped up and kicked seven kind of shit out of the kids, but he couldn't. They were, well, kids. Seifer knew that he could probably take the lot of them without breaking a sweat. But then Quistis would get that goddamn disappointed look and he'd be hauled up on the carpet again, and, well, it just wasn't worth it.

_See_, he thought. _This is _logical_ thinking. You'd be proud._

He settled for insults as cheap and plentiful ammunition. "Just get lost before I nail you to the ceiling."

"You and whose army?"

"Just me."

Several of the kids looked unimpressed, though a few children laughed nervously. "The commander kicked your ass." one of them pointed out.

"Fluke. And you better believe it."

"He could've killed you."

"Who said that?"

"_Everybody_ says that."

"I don't." Seifer snapped. The first mistake, he realised, had been getting into a conversation with them in the first place. The sensible thing would have been to finish his work and leave. But Seifer never, _never_ let things lie. And he never walked away

"Everyone except you."

"Oh, yeah?" Seifer said. He gave them the sharp, brightly edged smile of a shark who had just swum into the children's paddling pool and was wondering which bit to bite first.

"I think they shouldn't have let you back. It gives Garden a bad name."

"Who gives a shit about what you think?"

"I bet you've forgotten how to fight, even."

Seifer stood, picked up his toolbox. The machine settled on the lid, legs spread like a spider's to keep its balance. "Fine. I bet I can kill more monsters that you all put together."

"With a toolbox?"

Seifer grinned. "Trade secret."

He would never have done what he did if he'd stopped to think about it. Why break the habit of a lifetime? He'd never thought in his life, he wasn't about to start now, twenty years and the best part of eight months in.

"In there?" The first wobble of uncertainty entered the kid's voice.

"Yeah.You first."

More experienced cadets would have refused, or at least made sure that Seifer went in before them. And if they'd been just two years older, and known just how many fights Seifer had won during his time at the school, and how, they would probably have run in the opposite direction as fast as their legs could carry them, friends or no friends.

The lead teenager hesitated, but he didn't refuse. He was nervous and slightly uncertain, but he went. They all went.

Seifer shepherded the last one in, waited until they were grouped in a wary huddle in the sandy foyer and then dragged the doors shut, scraping long trails in the gravel. By the time the students had worked out what was happening he had wedged a spanner from his toolbox in between the chunky metal handles. He gave the metal a cursory tug to make sure it wouldn't loosen, grinned and wiped long streaks of rust onto his trousers from the palms of his hands. Moving leisurely, he crossed the gravel courtyard and closed the second set of doors, shutting them and levering his second spanner home just as hurrying footsteps slammed down the metal walkway towards him. From behind the three inch sheet metal he could hear the beat of hands on steel plate, and muffled shouting.

Seifer grinned, picked up his toolbox and sauntered away. They should have him as instructor, he decided. After all, he'd just taught those kids a valuable lesson. Don't fuck with people more intelli-well, nastier than yourself. It was nearly time for Zell's lesson, and he had no more AC units left to fix. He'd let the kids out after his duel. Served them right.

It seemed like it had been a long time since his last session. Seifer counted on his fingers, mentally numbering the days.

_I guess I missed the last lesson. Never mind, it's only the second this week. But I suppose I should go. Apart from anything else-it's good practice._

The prospect of a duel lightened Seifer's mood. He'd scored some points over the snot-nosed cadets. More than that, he'd sold another energy crystal that morning on his way to the garage, this one for cash. The money was more than enough to recoup the costs of Quistis's necklace, enough to keep him in cancer sticks for several days. And now there was fighting to be done, or at least an annoying blond haired SeeD to beat up. Even better, the beating would be legal.

Life was sweet.

It was still sweet an hour later, after he'd managed to prevent Zell Dincht from kicking his underachieving ass.

He followed Zell back to the changing rooms with a feeling of pride he would never have voiced, trading insults like Triple Triad cards.

The SeeD shower rooms were bare and practical, a narrow walled off corridor backed onto the changing rooms. The actual shower room was walled off from the changing rooms, tiled in cream ceramic with grey and blue stencils. It smelt vaguely of mould and more strongly of sweat and cheap shampoo. Metal shampoo dispensers and dishes of white soap lined one wall. Opposite them, silver space-age shower heads stuck out like metal flowers invading from the training centre above. Monster growls reverberated through the floors.

Seifer collected a navy towel from a wall hatch and slung his kit down on a bench, dripping water all over another cadet's stuff. He undressed leisurely, taking his time, taking stock of every bruise and cut so he could claim them back on Zell next time they duelled. Zell had already left the shower by the time Seifer got in, so the ex-knight didn't catch up with him until they were both towelling themselves dry.

At which point Seifer's good mood was nuked.

The ex-knight followed the usual straight-guy shower strategy of trying not to look, but there were some things it was hard to miss. He'd never realised it before, but Zell was tattooed on more than just his face.

"Ah, _fuck_."

Zell hummed happily, oblivious to his duelling partner's horrified gaze. He scrubbed at his hair with a towel, bending stray locks around his fingers to coax it into standing upright.

"Zell?"

Zell ignored him. He wrapped the towel around his head and gave his hair a thorough massage. Having completed this most important task, he stared cross-eyed at his reflection in the mirror, reached for a can of styling gel and poured a large dollop of the viscous fluid into his hand.

Seifer winced. "Hey, asshole."

Zell looked round. He gave a wild double-take as he noticed Seifer staring at him, brow furrowed in a scowl that would have done a T-Rexaur proud. Hair gel dripped between his fingers.

"Almasy, just what the hell is wrong with you?"

"Many, many things, however gayness is not one of them." Seifer snapped. "Believe me, Dincht, I've got better things to do than check out your ass."

Zell's fists clenched. He ran one hand through his hair, the one without the gel. "Do you get off on behaving like a jerk?"

Seifer sighed, threading his belt through the loops of his trousers. "Your back, chicken-wuss."

Zell whirled to check himself out in a mirror, no doubt wondering what in Hyne's name Seifer had done.

The reflection in the mirror confirmed Seifer's worst fears. It looked horribly familiar. Zell had the shoulder muscles of a fist fighter. Some time over the last two years, he'd chosen to decorate them with a design which complemented the one on his face. Swirls of black ink spread over Zell's shoulderblades in intricate, twisting patterns, perfectly symmetrical, before tapering out neatly at the point of each collarbone. A wide blank path of unblemished skin ran down his spine in a pale stripe. The striking designs resembled a pair of blackwork demon-wings.

The only problem was that Seifer had one just like it.

"Your tattoo, Dincht."

"Which one?" Zell's hand reached up to touch his face, unconsciously.

Seifer sighed and turned his back. "It's the same as mine."

"No way, man." Zell's towel dropped to the floor. His bruises were forgotten as he gyrated, frantically trying to see over his own shoulder. He finally took up a position just in front of the mirror, head swivelling wildly from side to side.

"That tattoo parlour in Balamb……" Seifer groaned. "Dincht, just put the towel back on. I'm traumatised enough, for fuck's sake."

"You got my tattoo!"

"Towel. On. Now."

"Hyne! It really is. Number eleven, right?" Zell pulled the towel up, thought better of it and then reached for his pants.

Seifer faced the other way and stayed faced until Dincht had his trousers on and the fly buttoned. To hell with opponent awareness, he didn't think Zell was going to jump him, and there were some things he just did not need to see.

"There's only one thing to do." Seifer reached for his T shirt. They were both pulling on clothes as fast as they could, maybe figuring that covering up the offending decorations would somehow erase them.

"What?"

Just stay here while I go down to the garage for a wire brush and a litre can of turpentine. That thing's coming off."

"Over my dead body!"

"Don't think I haven't considered that."

"I am not getting my tattoo removed!"

"Either that, or you never take your shirt off again. Though that shouldn't be too much of a problem for you, Dincht."

"You….I don't know why Quistis…" Zell muttered. He yanked his own shirt over his head and straightened up, ruffling one hand automatically through his hair.

Seifer smiled brilliantly. "Guess I must just be good in bed."

Zell's snort showed what he thought of that opinion.

Seifer tried to think of a way to turn the situation to his own advantage. "The way I see it, we've got two ways this can go. One, I hold you down and skin your back. Sure, it'll hurt, but I'm almostsure your tattoo won't show up under all the scar tissue."

"The _what?_"

"Probably."

"That isn't an option." Zell snapped.

"Maybe you're right. We should try the second way. Okay, number two, you take me down to the village, and we forget this ever happened." He was proud of the way he said it, almost casually, as if he hadn't been thinking about it for two whole weeks.

Zell didn't even notice. Didn't even think about it. Seifer mentally congratulated himself. If he'd know it was going to be this easy-

"What then?"

"Can they tattoo in flesh colour?

"No."

"Well then, we both get so drunk we can't remember and then we never speak of this again. We can go get some food on the way." Seifer added, as an afterthought. Garden's canteen food had been getting steadily more inedible over the last week. Seifer wasn't that interested in food, but he knew that Zell was. To tell the truth, he didn't think for one moment that anything in Balamb port would be any more appetising, but it was something. At that moment, he would have promised Zell anything to get him to sign him out of Garden. "Maybe they'd do hotdogs."

"We can get hotdogs here."

"Yeah." Seifer said. He stuffed clothes into his kitbag and threw the damp towel in on top. "But we can't get beer."

"_You_ can't get beer. _I_ can leave Garden any time I want."

"Fucking unfair." Seifer groused. "Anyway, who the hell cares? Let's go get drunk."

Zell gave him a wary look. He zipped up his own kitbag and sat down on one of the changing room's wooden benches. "Fine. Convince me"

"I thought I had."

"You didn't."

"Fine. Sign me out of Garden or I'll tell everyone about the hoverboard simulator and the first year cadets. That's the deal."

Zell didn't look impressed by Seifer's attempt at blackmail. "Go ahead. That was a looong time ago. Tell everyone"

Seifer pulled a pack of cigarettes from the side pocket of his bag. He selected one and rolled it in his fingers, all without taking his gaze off Zell. "Yeah." he said reflectively. "What _is_ the name of that little library girl you're dating?"

"Everyone except her."

Seifer tipped his head to the side to light his cigarette, smiling up at Zell with narrowed eyes. "Hyne, what's that name? Anna..Alannah…..No, don't help me. I'll get there eventually…"

"You wouldn't…yeah." Zell said. "Right. You would."

Seifer gave him the smile of someone always prepared to go further than anybody else. "You'll take me?" He stuffed the cigarette carton into his pocket and kicked his kitbag under the bench.

"Right now?"

"No time like the present."

Zell scowled. "Guess so. But don't expect me to pay. Or like, _like_ you or anything."

Seifer grinned. "Hyne, I love winning."

Zell's scowl deepened. "Don't rub it in." He shook his head. "Come on, if you're coming."

They both left.

* * *

Zell shook his head. 

He'd been prepared for anything over the previous couple of weeks, up to and including a full duel with live weapons. But the last thing he'd expected was for Almasy to actually teach him something.

Seifer fought like he enjoyed it, but he also fought as if he intended to cause as much damage as possible in the shortest time available. The ex-knight was an erratic teacher at best, one day he'd give a good lesson, keeping Zell at it until they were both exhausted. The next two sessions he'd beat the hell out of him just because he could, or so it seemed, never giving Zell a chance to defend himself. The next time, he wouldn't even show up, and then when Zell came late to the next lesson and didn't even bother to change he'd be leaning against the pillar, saying "What kept you?" And although Zell hated to admit it, really, sincerely hated to, it was good practice.

But Zell certainly didn't owe Seifer any favours.

It was therefore a bit of a mystery exactly why, at this present moment, he was standing outside Balamb's most infamous bar with somebody who'd once been his worst enemy.

The bar was named the Thekla. The letters were stencilled in thick white paint on her bow. Whoever had converted the boat from fishing craft to club-boat had been a minor genius, marrying Balamb island's main two exports -young people, and poorly preserved fish. The music was loud and the drinks were cheap, and the view of the gently rocking harbour from the portholes was particularly nauseating. The combination had made the bar an instant hit. The Thekla had been open for one year and six months and was now a Garden student legend

Despite her reputation, the ship wasn't much to look at. Her hull was painted in thick black gloss and her cabins had been decorated in vomit-splattered white matte. The lower deck had enough space for a handkerchief-sized dancefloor, a few chipped tables and a small but well-stocked bar. The bottles and glasses were arranged against a stencilled mirror in tiny alcoves, each one secured against the rolling swells with a strip of neon plastic.

It was early and the bar was mostly empty. They both bought drinks. Zell chose a beer. Seifer picked a glass of something clear and high in alcohol. They made their way up onto a deck, climbed to the cabin roof and sat, heels knocking against the boat-hull, water thirty feet below.

Half a drink later, Zell broke the silence and said something which had been preying on his mind for a while. "I can't believe you didn't notice it before."

"This boat's been set up since I left. Otherwise I'd have been." Seifer stared round at the dark water, the chipped paint. "Nice place."

"Nah, not the bar, the tattoos. Got mine nearly two years ago, must be, now. July time. Don't think you were here."

"I bet your mom loved that." Seifer said. Zell noticed that he avoided the issue of date. _Bet he had his done later_, he thought, but was wise enough to say nothing. _Score one to me._ He mentally licked his finger and scored a point on the air.

"She wasn't keen. Said I'd never get a job."

"Yeah, look where the hell you ended up." Seifer snarked. He looked down at his empty glass and appeared to realise something. "Dincht, we need more alcohol."

Zell shrugged. He made no move to pay but was surprised when Seifer climbed down to the deck and returned a few minutes later with one beer and a single small glass filled with a viscous green liquid.

Zell watched with mild amazement as Seifer pulled a tiny pink umbrella from his pocket, unfolded it with a flourish and handed the drink to him. "I don't drink….-whatever this is." He took a cautious sniff. His eyes watered. "What _is_ this?"

Seifer took the beer for himself and settled back down on the roof. "You don't drink this? Thought it'd be right up your street."

"It's not."

"It's free. Don't complain."

"Where'd you get cash from anyway?" Zell asked suspiciously.

"You don't want to know." Seifer said. He took a gulp of his own drink, unconcerned about the effects of mixing, and flopped back onto the cabin roof. "It's good to be out."

"I'm still not sure I should have agreed to that." Zell said uncertainly. He had a nasty feeling that Seifer wasn't allowed out, and a rising dread of what he might do to prove Squall wrong. They only left when they'd drank all of Zell's money. Seifer never had much so he didn't care. Seifer was a mean drunk, in fact, he was a mean sober. And okay, he seemed…fine, not mental or anything, but in Zell's opinion the ex-knight didn't so much have mood swings as a complete children's playground, roundabout, slide and all, and he didn't want to be there when the shit hit the fan.

"Relax. Squall told me it was more or less okay for me to leave, just as long as another SeeD signed me out. Which was what you just did. We're fine."

"Not just for drinking, though." Zell persisted. He had a problem with 'more or less.'

"He didn't mention _not_ drinking." Seifer said thoughtfully. "Is that good enough for you?"

Zell looked down at his glass. His reflection stared back, doubtful in wobbly acid green liquor. "I suppose it'll have to be." He swallowed a gulp, and choked, tasting a strong flavour of aniseed. His eyes streamed, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "What'd you think of the place?"

Seifer shrugged at him. He shifted his beer from his right to his left hand, ground out his cigarette on the pitted wooden deck, then switched hands again. "It's okay. Would be better, but it's full of assholes."

Zell swallowed a larger gulp of his drink. He was beginning to get used to the bitter taste. "You think everyone's an asshole."

"Not everyone."

"Ninety-nine-percent." Zell said. It wasn't that Seifer actively disliked people, he knew. Unlike Squall, he at least talked to people, although most of the words he told them had four letters.

Seifer gestured at the town and the lights of the Garden, glowing a golden halo in the distance. "Higher, outside Balamb."

Zell did the maths. "Ninety nine per cent, I mean, yeah, but what's the odds on there being ninety nine assholes and one normal person in any given area?"

"Why the hell're you asking me? You're the instructor. Sergeant, sorry."

"Both, actually." Zell had thought that he was past the stage of proudly glancing at his sergeant's stripes every time somebody reminded him of the fact he had authority. Not yet, he wasn't.

"I was lying. I'm not."

"Well, anyway, what's the chance of there being ninety-nine assholes to one average Joe? I think it's much more likely that there's one asshole, and ninety nine normal people."

"Fuck off., You're supposed to be stupid. You sound like Quistis"

"The asshole," Zell said, to push the point home, "being you."

"SeeDs aren't normal."

They sat for a while. Zell shrugged his jacket off and traded some more Dollet courage. "So, uh, what about you and Quistis?"

Seifer flicked his crushed fag-end from the deck into the water, where it sank. "What about us?"

"Do you love her?" Zell said bluntly.

"If I did, do you think I'd tell you? Here's news, Dincht. I still think you're a moron, and I'm not going to open up just because we've had a few drinks together. So fuck off." Seifer snarled. He turned away and took a long drink, clearly considering the conversation over.

"Well, it's an answer." Zell said. He glanced back at Garden's lights and wondered where Quistis was, what she was doing.

"Damn right it is. And it's the only one you're getting."

"Look after her." Zell said.

Seifer just shrugged and drank more.

Zell being Zell, took the ex-knight's seeming disinterestedness as a sign that he really wasn't interested. He finished his drink off and set the glass down on the roof of the boat, considering what Seifer had just said.

He said if I loved her. _If _he did.

If. Implying that, well, he didn't.

Zell sighed. It was a mystery to him how anyone as beautiful and intelligent as Quistis could fall for anyone as monumentally fucked-up as Almasy and get away with it.

They both sat there, united in not-quite multilateral disarmament, rocking gently in the swell. The sun slipped below the horizon and the lights of the Fisherman's Horizon bridge lit up in the distance, bright against the dark waves.

Zell stared at the remains of his drink and wondered just what Seifer had in mind for the rest of the night. During his student days, Seifer had managed a few drinking bouts which were legend among the cadets. Zell had only been party to one. He'd been pretty drunk himself, but he remembered Seifer dressed only in boxer shorts, a pair of white trainers and a target painted on his chest in lipstick, slurring drunkenly at anybody to come and have a go if they thought they were hard enough and, improbably, winning until a few of the older cadets ganged together. It was still a matter for debate where he'd actually got the lipstick from…

* * *

"We've only got two minutes left." 

The speaker checked her watch, glancing around at her friends for confirmation. One glanced nervously around at the wet, dripping vegetation, flicking a spider from his collar.

"I don't like this. We shouldn't even be in here."

"Don't be a wuss. Of course we're not meant to be in here. If we were meant to be in here it wouldn't be a very good dare, would it?"

"Only maybe we're not meant to be in here because we're not ready for it yet…."

"Chicken!"

Noemi shivered and tuned both of the speakers out. She clutched her thin arms to her chest and did her best to stay out of the way of the dripping water. A drop plopped squarely on the crown of her head and she rubbed one hand across her limp blond hair. They were all crouched behind a pile of lumber not ten metres from the training Centre's left-hand entrance. All five of them.

"This was your idea, Stella."

"It's a bet, Ayo. You won't be complaining if we win. When we win." she corrected herself.

"If. If we win."

"Why shouldn't we? We've already been in here for ten minutes. Nothing's happened yet, has it? No monsters anywhere?"

"…No." the boy called Ayo reluctantly admitted. "not yet. But there must be, somewhere. Otherwise there wouldn't be all the rules."

"Huh. They hype this place up so damn much."

"Such a letdown." Seiko said from beside Stella.

"Yeah."

Noemi crouched beside them with her elbows resting on her knees and said nothing. But they were right; the Training Centre didn't feel so bad. Noemi was from South Trabia and the gently falling water cascading from the sprinklers, the scents of rotting leaves and mulch and strange perfume wafting from the head-sized flowers blossoming all around them reminded her of home.

"Isn't it time yet?"

"Almost. Now shush, I'm counting. Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen-"

That was when they heard the shouting. Liddie heard it first, curled up next to Noemi, even quieter than her friend. Her brown saucer-shaped eyes widened like a Chocobo sniffing flames, and seconds later they all heard it too. Somebody was shouting, loud angry voices with an edge of pure panic.

"Shall we go?"

"It's not time yet. They said fifteen minutes."

"Screw the bet. There's trouble. Let's get out of here before they find us!""

"Trouble?"

"Can't you hear the shouting?"

They glanced around at each other, frozen with the fear of being caught.

"I don't know-"

There was a small sound from behind them, a soft rustle of leaves. All five cadets froze. Noemi looked up and saw four leafshaped pods waving gently in the tree branches above their heads. Then another appeared, and another. She rose from her crouch, spun round and saw three bulbous bodies shouldering through the vegetation, perfectly camouflaged until they moved. She drew her tiny training blade.

"Grats!"

Seiko was the first to cut and run, vaulting the lumber pile and then they all followed her, jumping over the fenestrated concrete slabs, falling over each other in their hurry to reach the gates. A drifting orange cloud followed them as the Grats lumbered out of hiding.

"Help!"

It was only a few metres to the gates, Noemi thought. They'd be sure to make it. They had to. A tiny part of her promised that she'd never, ever do anything so stupid again if she got out.

Seiko, in front of her, skidded to a halt. Noemi ran smack into her back and stumbled.

The huge steel doors that led into the Training centre were closed, and they didn't look like they were opening any time soon. There was a group of older cadets in a huddle round the nearest door. As she watched one of them reached out and tugged at the handle. It didn't move, not even an inch.

A tentacle smashed down only inches away from her, leaving a smudge of greasy orange blood on the concrete floor. Noemi dodged, running on panic and pure adrenaline, and ducked into the shelter of a palm thicket. From behind her there came shrieks and damp wet sounds as the Grats attacked the other cadets. A second tentacle whipped above her head, then retreated as she forced her way deeper into the vegetation. Moisture dripped from broad leaves and soaked her clothes, spider's webs trailed across her nose and mouth, but she didn't stop until she had reached a small clearing and was absolutely sure that nothing was following.

Noemi lowered her small knife, panting. She glanced round the clearing, trying to retrace her steps. There was no sound apart from the click and buzz of insects. A shower of droplets dropped from the branches of a tree high above her and made her jump.

Sniffing, Noemi dragged a sleeve across her face, and realised with a sudden jolt of shock that she was too far in. Far too far in, in fact. First-level cadets were only allowed within the very fringes of the Training Centre, under supervision. They said there were special monsters deep in the heart of the training grounds, dangerous monsters.

She gave the clearing a second look, reading her own footprints in the grainy yellow sand. It was perfectly round, almost concave. A white oval lay half-buried in the sand at the centre. It was shiny and pale, with many tiny depressions pockmarking its surface. Noemi moved closer for a better look. She touched the side of the globe with the toe of her sneaker and it gave slightly, rubbery like an inflated balloon. She had just withdrawn her foot when a head the size of a car shoved its way through the bushes.

The T-Rexaur snarled.

Noemi screamed.

* * *

"Seif?" 

"Call me that again and you'll be looking for your teeth. Up your ass." Seifer snapped. The beer hadn't improved his temper much. If Dincht thought that buying the drinks gave him the right to ask Seifer awkward questions about his love life, he had another think coming.

"I was going," Zell said "to offer to buy a round. I'm not drinking another glass of that crap you bought the last time." He got up, leaving his jacket behind him on the cabin roof.

Seifer shrugged. "I'm not stopping you."

Zell left. Seifer rifled his own pockets for more cigarettes and came up with an empty carton. He sat for five minutes before he got bored, kicking his heels on the chipped boat hull and waiting for Zell to bring more beer. Zell's jacket lay crumpled beside him on the roof and Seifer yanked it towards him and rifled through his pockets gently, more out of boredom and curiosity than any desire for personal enrichment. He found nothing more incriminating than a pair of Hi-Potions in one pocket and took them automatically, checking each bottle critically for cracks and flaws before stuffing them deeply in his own jeans.

Zell didn't return. Seifer finished the last of his own drink and waited. The beer was warm and nutty in his mouth, music below in the bar vibrating though the hull to rattle his teeth. A few other partygoers popped their heads up through the hatch, then down again and away as soon as they saw Seifer. He liked it that way, and didn't complain. There was still no sign of Zell.

Seifer sat on the roof in the dark. He watched the even darker ocean, and thought about his future. It was a topic he mostly avoided thinking about. There was no point planning ahead if you didn't know you were going to have a head to plan for. Sometimes, thought, it just happened.

He admitted to himself that maybe it _was_ time to make a change, to accept that he was back at Balamb and live with it. Maybe he'd be able to spend the rest of his life working his way up the chain of command, rung by steady rung, carving out some kind of a niche for himself at the school. Maybe it would even be enough that people would forget what he had done, if he worked hard.

Maybe.

It was a new idea to Seifer and he turned it over in his mind, alcohol rising mellowly through his veins. He thought he might even be happy. All he had to do was give up all the dreams of power and influence, knights and sorceresses. He'd have to become part of Garden, just another cog in the machine. And Edea would die on her island a lonely old woman and maybe the dreams would stop, as long as he gave up any remaining pretensions of being anything more. Or maybe he'd go visit after all and she'd be better, miraculously. Who knew?

Zell appeared, and Seifer was almost glad to see him. Almost. Fortunately for Seifer, he didn't notice the items missing from his pockets, and the ex-knight was in no hurry to tell him. He'd heard that Hi-Potions made great hangover cures, and he was in the mood to get very, very drunk.

They talked about nothing some more. Neither was very good at making idle chat; Seifer's vocabulary was better suited to insults and threats than gossip and Zell was feeling increasingly uneasy about bringing Seifer out at all. They had few safe topics that wouldn't automatically lead to a fight, and after discussing fighting techniques and a couple of new weapons upgrades that had become available in the previous three weeks they'd pretty much exhausted all of those. But they managed.

Seifer didn't mention his new idea to Zell. There were many reasons why not, but the main one was that Zell would be so damn keen about it all. He would think that Seifer was trying to turn over a new leaf, and then he'd have not to, just to prove Zell wrong.

They finished their beers, and bought more. Seifer went down to the bar and bought a packet of cigarettes from the barman with Zell's money. He lit one and offered a second casually to Zell. The boxer regarded the crumpled cardboard packet with its Tar Baby logo as if it were poison.

"Want one?"

"I don't smoke." Zell said, critically. "And you never used to."

"Do now. Hell, it's something to do in between trips to the bar." Seifer said. He struck a match on one side of the ship and touched it to his cigarette. "Best use for Fire spells there is."

"Why waste magic?"

Seifer inhaled. The tip of his cigarette glowed in the dark. "Why not? You gotta light your cigarette in a cool way."

"How?" Zell asked, intrigued.

"Doesn't matter. With your feet, nose, upper lip. Underwater."

"Underwater?"

"And fast. If your cig isn't lit, like, within five seconds, you might as well put it away and wait a bit."

Zell declined, still muttering things about his health. Seifer wasn't bothered. More for him. They drank more, and the conversation turned to other topics such as Garden news and shared history, skirting round the bits neither of them particularly wanted to remember. Seifer could never remember just how they got onto discussing the time travel paradox, but it was several rounds later. He was strangely comforted to find that it made no more sense drunk than sober. Quistis had tried to explain her own theory to him once, using long words like 'quantum' which Seifer instinctively mistrusted. He'd tolerated her explanation and looked happy while she was doing it, because explaining things made Quistis hot. But he'd never understood it.

"So, did I get this right? Squall went back in time compression and told Edea all about the SeeDs. And then she told Cid about you. That was how the Gardens started? That was the reason Balamb won?"

Zell took a long pull on his beer. He wiped a hand across his mouth to remove the foamy moustache. "Yeah."

"But then, if he didn't tell her, there wouldn't have been any SeeDs," Seifer said. "So he wouldn't have been there to tell her."

"It all makes sense, in a kind of crazy way." said Zell. He doodled on the splintered planks of the roof, patterns of stick figures and spaceships that melted into nothing as the beer ran and dripped gently from the decking. "Weird, though, isn't it?"

"Makes my brain hurt. But the sorceress _was_ Edea. Why didn't she know?"

"She did. That's why she told you to wipe out all the SeeDs."

"But it must have already happened, or there wouldn't have been any SeeDs." Seifer pointed out. "And I thought that was my idea."

"It wasn't. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction." Zell said, philosophically.

"Bollocks." Seifer said.

"I'm too drunk for this."

"Hell, you have to be drunk just to understand it."

They weren't exactly close to swearing undying brotherhood, but an understanding had been reached, something that had been planted with the days of duelling. By then Zell had bought four rounds and Seifer had bought one, though he went below decks and came up with vodka for them both. It wasn't expensive, but it cost him far more effort to persuade Zell into drinking it. For some reason he seemed to be convinced that the ex-knight was on a mission to poison him with toxic liquids or get him roaringly drunk to participate in some nefarious scheme. Seifer couldn't understand it himself, but he was quite flattered.

"If it's clear, then it's pure. No hangover. Guaranteed. Trust me."

"I don't." Zell said.

"Put it this way, either you won't get a hangover or you'll feel so bad you won't remember whether I lied to you or not."

By the sixth drink they were persuaded that they had more in common than they'd thought and by the eight and last they were as close as brothers, at least for a couple of hours until the alcohol wore off.

"Seifer?"

The ex-knight looked round. "Yeah?" He exhaled slowly, watching the pale smoke drift slowly up towards the stars. He had never had the patience for smoke rings, but he was thinking maybe he should learn. But then, all kinds of things could seem a good idea after a few beers.

Zell was hunched on the very edge of the roof, staring intently down into the water

"The floor-it's moving."

Seifer moved further to the edge and took a good look at the sea below them. "Zell, that's _water_."

"Is it?"

Seifer rolled his eyes. Dincht must have a lower tolerance for alcohol than he'd thought. "Yeah."

"Really?" Zell asked, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"Yeah." Seifer moved closer to the edge. Ash dripped from his cigarette and landed in the water below.

"Water? Is it?"

"Yeah." Seifer said. He shifted closer to the edge, just to make sure Zell hadn't seen something, a monster or a body, in the water and had chosen a really incoherent way to tell him about it. "We're on a ship, 'case you forgot. For Hynessake, Zell."

The too-innocent look on Zell's face should have warned him. It didn't.

"How damn drunk _are_ yo-"

And that was when Zell shoved him between the shoulderblades. It wasn't a very hard push, but it didn't have to be.

After Seifer surfaced, spluttering, his damp cigarette still clenched tightly between his teeth, after the shouting, after the Thekla had thrown them both out and they'd ended up in some other bar, some small bar down by the hotel which smelt of wet dog and years' worth of nicotine, they drank some more. Seifer drank so much Zell began to sound interesting and make sense. He convinced Zell that getting utterly and totally wasted was in some way toasting Squall's success as a Garden Commander and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

It was half past two in the morning by the time they'd drank all of Zell's money.

"Let's go back to Garden." Seifer suggested.

"Yeah." Zell said. "We can drink there."

"No. Enough drinking."

"Whaaa?"

"Gotta visit Quistis." Seifer said. He'd had the germ of an idea on the Thekla, a conviction that grew stronger with each successive drink.

"That's….. not a g'd idea." Zell slurred.

"Why?"

"J'st not."

"Got something I want to tell her."

"Can't it wait 'till the m'rning?" Zell's last brain cell fizzled out and died.

"No."

"Mmmmuh…yeah fine." Zell said. He'd regret agreeing later, but not half as much as Seifer would.

* * *

The computer cursor flashed in front of Quistis's eyes. The words on the screen had long since stopped making any sense. Her head hurt like somebody was trying to hammer roofing nails through each temple, making it hard to concentrate on the reports she was marking. She was almost glad when her private phone rang. 

Anybody listening would have heard her voice change from polite with just a touch of neuralgia-induced frost to a tone of horrified concern as the conversation went on.

"Hello?"

"Yes?"

"You what? What accident? How many? Oh Hyne. My class? Okay, I'll be right down."

Quistis jumped up from her keyboard and ran, pausing only to unclip Save The Queen from her belt. She reached the Training Centre within two minutes, boots skidding wildly on corridor linoleum, and grabbed the nearest SeeD. "What's going on?"

"There's been…an accident."

Quistis glanced round at the sandy arena that served as the centre's atrium. Dr Kadowaki was bent over a hunched child propped up with her back against a palm tree. A few people hurried round with stretchers. It should have worked the opposite way, but just the presence of the good doctor made Quistis feel better.

"There's people still in there!" she heard someone say, and then she was running, the whip already uncurling from her hand.

The Training Centre was a melee of monsters and people. A T-rex lay against the electric fence and sparks showered in the air as it writhed. SeeD weapons had disabled both its hind legs but the massive head still snapped and struggled. Quistis took one step towards it, but before she could do anything Xu darted in to close with the monster. Through the slashing, stabbing crowd, Quistis saw her friend jump onto the T-Rex's flank, run lightly up to its head and sink both of her long-bladed daggers up to the hilt in the creature's mad little eyes.

Quistis moved on. She helped two other SeeDs she knew only vaguely subdue a couple of Grats maddened into frenzy by the activity. The last one had just collapsed into a pile of liquefying ooze when something jumped out of the bushes and grabbed her round the waist. It clung like a squirrel, gripping tightly, but made no move to attack. Quistis shortened her whip desperately, hoping against hope that her assailant delayed its attack for enough time for her to get a good hold on the whip. She had already raised the weapon for a killing blow before she realised that the small figure was crying. The lash raised up dust.

"Noemi?"

The junior cadet released her deathgrip on Quistis's waist long enough to clutch at hr arm. Her small body shook in Quistis's hands. Tears, mucus and tree sap streaked her face.

"Are you alright?"

A tiny nod.

Quistis got a better grip on the cadet and hoisted her into her arms. She was surprisingly light. "Let's get you to the doctor."

Noemi sniffed. "M' all right."

"You're not."

"Am. I'm sorry, Instructor Trepe. It was all our fault. We went in for a bet-and then the doors were shut, so we couldn't get out."

Quistis stepped over the tentacle of a fallen Grat. "Go on." She tried her best to keep the cadet alert and talking. Noemi didn't look shocked, but sometimes in younger children it was hard to tell.

It wasn't until later, until Quistis was sitting in a chair in Dr Kadowaki's office with a group of other SeeDs and a catheter inserted in her arm for a blood transfusion, that she had time to piece together what had happened. It wasn't hard. The cadets had been trapped in the arena with a couple of spanners, in an area where Seifer had been seen working earlier, and there was some half-assed story about a bet. Quistis would have loved for Seifer to turn up and prove her theory wrong, but Seifer was nowhere to be found, and Quistis's anger became harder and colder with each passing minute.

What in Hyne's name was he doing?

* * *

Zell didn't know where Seifer was heading until he was standing outside the door, and by then he was way too drunk to do anything about it. He'd thought Seifer sober, back in the bar, until he looked into his eyes. Now he knew he wasn't. 

It was very dark. Zell realised that it was much later than he'd thought back in the bar.

Seifer kicked at the door like he was trying to wake Quistis and kicked it again until it seemed like he was trying to wake the whole of Garden. But then again, this was Seifer. He probably was.

It was beginning to dawn on Zell that letting Seifer talk to Quistis in his current state was not the best idea he'd ever had. But then, since when had Zell started caring just how much trouble Almasy walked himself into? Besides, it was the general opinion around Balamb that Quistis would be better off without him, and Zell subscribed to that belief. But he tried anyway. He didn't try hard, but he tried….

"Hey, stop that-"

Seifer ignored Zell. He kicked until Quistis shouted from inside the room and kept on hammering at the door with the steel toecap of his boot until she came to the door, blond hair in tangles over her shoulders.

"I was just thinking." he said into the darkness.

* * *

Quistis rubbed her eyes and looked at him like he was mad. 

Seifer didn't blame her.

He supposed that it was very late, and hell, he knew when he'd been drinking, hard to forget, in fact, because the world around him seemed dangerously fluid and simple

"Thought I could forget all the knight stuff. We, I mean- Garden's not so bad, you know. Maybe I could stick with it. See what comes up. People might forget."

Quistis rubbed her eyes with a badly bruised arm. "What are you talking about?"

"I could stop all the knight stuff., Just be normal. It's not been so bad, these last few weeks. People'll forget, like I told you."

There was a doubt at the back of Seifer's mind, albeit dulled by near-lethal quantities of alcohol. Something told him that he would never be satisfied with a normal life as just another sword for hire. There was no point in playing happy families when your average life expectancy was twenty-seven and your veins were so fried with magic you'd forgotten what 'normal' meant.

One look at Quistis's face told Seifer that his argument wasn't working. He tried to summarize the points into a succinct whole. "I'm back at Balamb, and that's okay, you know. It's not so bad. Just need to learn to live with it…"

Zell blinked. Whatever he'd been expecting Seifer to say, it wasn't that

Quistis pushed back her hair. She looked exhausted, as if she'd only been asleep for a few minutes. "Where in Hyne's name have you been?"

Zell didn't see anything after that, because he passed out on the floor.

Seifer just looked at her in vague puzzlement. He'd been thinking about what he was going to say to Quistis since they left the harbour. In his head, it had sounded epic and coherent, well-thought-out. In the hallway, it just sounded damn stupid. From the look on Quistis's face, she thought so too.

"Hell, Quis, we just went to Balamb town." Looked at his watch and the glowing numerals swam before his eyes. He thought it was two-thirty, but he might have been wrong. Hell, why break the habit of a lifetime?

"You're not supposed to be going anywhere! You're not supposed to be breaking any rules! Oh, I don't believe this. Don't you think?"

Seifer was already two steps behind. "Well, I tried not to, but-"

"It was lucky nobody was killed!"

Seifer looked down at her, puzzled. He leant one arm against the doorframe for balance. "We only went for a fucking beer."

Quistis drew her arm back and hit him, not an open-handed slap but a proper blow that made his teeth rattle.

From the look in her eyes, Seifer had the distinct feeling that he wouldn't see her naked again for a very long time; probably until they were both too wrinkly to be up to much.

Quistis leant forwards, stepping out of her room and into the corridor for the first time. Her bare feet were pale against the grey carpet. "Ask those kids."

"What kids?"

"The kids in the infirmary. The ones from my class."

Seifer swallowed to force down a sudden feeling of frozen guilt. It was that or vomit. "Oh. Those kids. Must've forgotten.

Silence. Deathly, frozen silence.

Seifer had the feeling that pretty much anything he said at this point would be inadequate, but he tried. "Was going to let them out."

"You didn't."

"They were pretty old. They should have been all right."

"The fifteen year olds you shut in? They would have been. They were, in fact. The eight cadets from my class who sneaked in there for the first time and got locked in with them, on the other hand, were _not_." She hissed the last word between her teeth.

"People were getting hurt when you were getting drunk."

Looking at her face, Seifer knew that 'Sorry' would be inadequate. 'So what' would probably earn him instant castration and he'd have to count himself lucky that she didn't just take up Save The Queen and carve him up where he stood.

There was the sudden hot silence of a dozen cadets in surrounding rooms listening in and, probably, taking notes.

"Sorry." he said anyway and then he threw up on her feet.

Quistis drew back with an expression of revulsion on her face. "Go to bed. Someone'll be along in the morning." She didn't bother to wait for his reply; she just looked at him in a deep disgusted manner, turned away and shut her door.

"Shit." Seifer said.

He liked the sound of it so he said it a few more times for good measure. After that he remembered that he wasn't supposed to care about anything anyway and spat a few more curses in the general direction of her closed (and if she had any sense, dead-locked and bolted) door. The swearwords were a smokescreen, to cover up the feeling that he'd been kicked in the guts.

Quistis had a mind like a knife blade and Seifer usually treated it with the respect that was due an edged weapon. But like a dagger, her thought processes had to clearly defined sides, good and evil. And Quistis, finally, had flipped.

There was s soft thump. Probably Quistis, Seifer thought with his few remaining brain cells; banging her head against the wall.

Then he collected Zell Dincht from the floor and staggered back to his room. Somewhere along the line he remembered that Zell lived nowhere near his room, and dropped him. Sometime after that he remembered that he never asked for his necklace back, but by then he really needed to piss, so he forgot again.

He remembered just enough to swallow the first Hi-potion he'd stolen from Zell to sober up. After that he, he fell asleep on the bed.

And after _that_, it was all over bar the shouting

* * *

Author note: 

Thanks for everyone's comments, especially the people who said that they recognised the Sifl and Olly references and the 'Ninja Of The Night' clips in particular (a series of Naruto music videos lip-synched to Sifl and Olly sketches) The three Ninja Of The Night vids can be found here for download.

http/ Thekla is a real club, moored in the harbour at Bristol (the one in England), though I've used a hella lot of artistic licence, and the tattoo part of this chapter is the ONLY Seifer/Zell shower scene I will ever write.

Reviews:

Ardwynna Morrigu: I like that you described Seifer as being 'conniving.' He definitely enjoys being manipulative. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it isn't.

Aya: I've actually never watched Sif and Olly, but the NOTN vids are crack.

Breaker-one: ta! I love writing character interaction and making it believable. Action sequences are fun to do, but I often end up liking the talking bits best myself.

Emily: Dunno whether or not this classes as 'action.' The 'Seifer mooching around with nothing to do' part of this story is definitely over, though.

Ghost140: ta!

Jack Hanek: thanks a lot!

Iudex Acerbus: ta. I kind of enjoyed writing Laguna. More on him later.

Lain Of The Weird: It was NOT shower sex! They could have, uh, got out and played scrabble or something.

Nynaeve-77: yeah, I reread and a couple of bits got cut. Hopefully I'll have reloaded the prev chapter by the time you read this.

Seatbelts: Edea is ..not right. More on that next chapter.

Seventhe: I dunno. I hated ffx2 at first, until I found that your Dark Knights with all their abilities earned can pretty much ass-kick everything you put in front of them. There are a couple of neat little tweaks to the game system which I liked.

Sheep-the-adventurer: many thanks, d00d.

ThistleDemon: I didn't use the 'D minus ass' bit, partly because it would have been out of character for Squall to taunt Seifer and partly because Seifer has/is an A+ ass whichever way you look at it.

Verdanni: thanks for all your reviews. Glad you liked the new chapters.


	11. Chapter Ten: Some Happy Ending

Recovering The Satellites

* * *

_Quistis_

And as for some happy ending  
I'd rather stay single and thin  
So what have you got to say about that?  
And what does someone do without love?  
And what does someone do with love?  
And what have you got to say about that?

Catatonia: Mulder And Scully (edit)

Chapter Ten: Some Happy Ending

* * *

Quistis shut the door in Seifer's face.

The gesture was immensely satisfying, one she would have relished in different circumstances. As the door slammed she took her keycard from the bedside table and swiped it through the electronic lock. A red light glowed faintly in the half-dark as the mechanism engaged.

There was a long silence.

Quistis leant against the door, face forwards, her palms flat against the laminate. She listened as the silence blended into a few muffled words that might or might not have been curses. The swearwords and footsteps died away after a while. She listened just long enough to make sure that Seifer wasn't returning, then slid down to the floor. The back of her skull hit the door behind her and her head began to ache. She hugged her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself.

She hadn't expected Seifer to leave so suddenly. He enjoyed a good brawl; verbal, physical or both, and he would always, always fight his corner. Quistis had been hoping for a furious denial. She had been _expecting_ an argument, and what she'd got included silence and a drunken apology of doubtful sincerity.

Quistis sighed.

_It's funny how things turn around so fast_, she thought. She felt limp and exhausted and sore, as if Seifer had kicked her in the guts and trampled all over her instead of just not saying very much. Half an hour of sleep on seven pints of blood had not been enough to compensate for a day's hard work.

_So I trusted him and I should never have done that. I didn't think he'd make another mistake-_ _or not one that mattered so much. I didn't think anybody could be-could do- something that careless…I never should-_

Quistis sniffed. She went to wipe her nose on the sleeve of her dressing gown, then thought better of it and dug in her pockets for a tissue. Her knuckles hurt as she flexed her hand and she felt a whisper of regret before she stamped the emotion out.

_I knew he was bad news; everyone tried to tell me and I never believed them._

She remembered the children and felt sick. Her feet stank of bile, and she had answered the door barefoot.

_Damn._

Quistis buried her face in the warm towelling crook of her elbow. Her toes were cold so she tucked her feet in the folds of her dressing gown, not caring if the robe was ruined. She muffled a sniff in the corner of the robe and wiped surreptitiously at the corner of her eye with a tissue. Her lips moved silently as she summoned Shiva and let the ice GF dry her tears. Tiny ice crystals froze on her cheekbones and rolled down her face to land in her lap, where they melted.

Quistis never noticed the cold. She sat in the half-dark and stared at the certificates on her wall, comforting herself with each success. The commendations and awards ranged across her walls, records of faultless missions or exams passed with merit. _Maybe I'm shallow and insecure, _she thought,_ but this is my life._

After a while she composed herself enough to dismiss the GF and get herself to bed, moving mechanically. She stuffed the ruined dressing gown in a laundry bag, rinsed her feet off with the shower head and got into her bed. It felt empty and cold, too much space, somehow. Quistis crossed her arms beneath her head and stared at the ceiling.

_Back to work, I guess. Use duty and routine as crutches, they'll help you get through this. Always have, always will. _

She didn't sleep, hadn't really expected to. The next morning dawned too fast despite her insomnia. Quistis didn't feel ready to face the world, but she thought herself slightly more rational. She stood in front of the mirror and masked the tremors in her hands with cup after cup of strong black coffee. The saline drops in her contact lens kit took care of her red eyes. She masked the dark circles that ringed her eyesockets with a stick of hardly-used concealer and believed the effort had worked until she looked more closely and knew it hadn't. Her reflection in the glass was ghastly, a blend of zombie and Estharian drag queen. The make-up looked fake, masklike. Her eyes were too bright and they glittered unsteadily in her washed out face.

_Relationships give us a reason to live_, she thought. _Revenge._

She had been half-expecting a knock on her door, but none came. Quistis was glad of that, at least. Nothing Seifer could say would ever fix things between them, but it would have been nice to know that he cared, or at least, to have the chance to ignore him.

_I wonder- _

_No, I don't wonder anything. I hope he's somewhere far away from here, preferably starting the long, slow process of learning how not to be an idiot. _Quistis thought as she drained her last cup of coffee. A few minutes work on the door's electronic locking system set a long and fiendishly complicated password full of letters and randomly chosen digits. Seifer would have more luck breaking into the First Monterosa Bank in Esthar City than ever entering her room again. And if he ever did, she'd be gone.

The sleepless night had given Quistis an idea. Seifer was forbidden to leave the Garden on pain of death. If he ever, ever, came near Quistis again, he would be in pain of pain. That in itself was not a problem, but unnecessary fights were unprofessional, a concept that Seifer had always failed to grasp. Therefore, she would leave. There would be a vacant mission, somewhere. Quistis would take it, and leave Balamb, and spend the rest of her assignment hacking up monsters until there were no more monsters to be hacked at.

That was her plan.

Quistis had to admit that she'd made better. She took a last look in the mirror, sighed, and began to remove all of her carefully-applied makeup. She'd look like hell, but that would be better than looking like she was trying too hard.

* * *

"You look like hell." Xu said. She leant forwards in her chair to scrutinise Quistis's face. "Are you all right?"

Quistis bit back the automatic _what do you think_ attempting to force its way past her lips. "Yes?"

Xu swivelled in her seat, her hands already busy at the coffee percolator. "You're a really bad liar. Now sit down before you fall down."

"I'm a really bad SeeD." Quistis said miserably. She huddled into the plastic chair set before Xu's desk.

"Nonsense." Xu said bracingly. She held out a mug of espresso to her friend. Its sharp, bitter scent made Quistis's stomach flip and she pushed the mug away. "Sorry, Xu, but if I have any more cups of coffee this morning I'll begin to twitch."

Xu raised her eyebrows and treated Quistis to a penetrating glare, the kind that began at her head and travelled all the way down to her feet, taking in the too-neat hairstyle, the pupils dilated by caffeine and insomnia and the pallor of her skin. "You're really wrecked, aren't you? That bastard."

"I'm-" Quistis said, "-fine. Yes. Fine."

Xu stamped a report with rather more force than was necessary. "In all honesty-"

Quistis sighed. No sentence beginning with the words _in all honesty_ was ever going to be easy to listen to. She was aware that she probably needed to hear the truth, but what she really _wanted_ was someone to lie to her. Lies, and tranquillisers.

"In all honesty," Xu said "when I first heard the news, I felt like it was all for the best." She looked as if she was struggling for words. "Relationshipwise, I mean"

Quistis reached for the coffee mug against her better judgement. "Xu, what are you trying to say?"

"Maybe it wasn't a good idea. Maybe it wasn't in both your best interests. See, I'm trying to be fair about this-"

"I made a mistake about him." Quistis said flatly.

Xu passed her a biscuit from a silver tin. "Seifer always has been, and always will be a mistake. Let's face it, no man whose hobbies are running over squirrels and reversing evolution by several thousand years is ever going to amount to anything. He had his last chance and he screwed it up. And the thing with last chances is that you only ever get one."

Quistis hunched in her seat and nibbled the edge of the biscuit. _How many chances do I get?_ she thought. _After all, I'm the one who brought Seifer back to Garden in the first place?_ She knew the answer even as she phrased the question. Balamb's heroes would get as many second chances as they liked. It wasn't fair, but that was how life was.

She wondered what would happen to Seifer now and decided that she didn't need to know.

"Xu?"

Her friend looked up. "What? You haven't eaten your biscuit."

"I already had breakfast." Quistis said, lying through her teeth. "I don't need a biscuit. What I _do_ need, and I've thought about this long and hard, is a new mission."

In fact, Quistis hadn't thought about anything much at all. She had thought up her scheme as she washed vomit from between her toes the previous evening, and mapped it on the blank ceiling through all the long hours of the night.

Xu looked at her with concern. "Anything you had in mind?"

Quistis drained her coffee. "I want to travel. Somewhere as far away as possible, please."

"This isn't to do with- " Xu said, then stopped as Quistis looked at her with hollowed eyes. "This is all to do with him, isn't it?"

"I'm not staying, Xu." Quistis said, in a tone of voice that said _of course it is_.

Xu reached for another report and slammed the stapler down so hard on it she almost punched a hole in the desk. "And _I'm_ not letting you bury yourself in some desert just because you think it's the right thing to do."

"You won't change my mind. I'm still leaving"

Xu opened her mouth and shut it again. "This isn't like you."

Quistis shrugged.

"Squall's waiting to see you."

Quistis frowned. She rubbed a finger under her eyes in a futile attempt to erase the shadows underneath. "I didn't make an appointment."

"He's still waiting."

"That doesn't really surprise me." Quistis said.

The office was exactly the same as it had been when she'd attempted her resignation. The glass roof transformed the room into a glittering pool of sunbeams, shafts of light dancing around sail-like white hangings. Squall's desk sat beneath the largest hanging, right in the centre of the room. A thin line of red carpet stretched between the podium and Quistis's reluctant feet. She made her way to the comfortable chair set in front of the desk and sat.

Squall stared at her levelly. His hair cascaded untidily over his forehead, a sign that he had left before Rinoa had had a chance to make him comb it. His gloves lay discarded on the desk, and a clear line separated his tanned forearms from his paler hands. "He won't bother you again. I'll make sure of it."

Quistis squinted at him in the sunlight. "I don't care."

"What do you want?" Squall asked her.

Quistis wondered if he thought she'd come asking for revenge. She shook her head. "Just tell me about the situation, honestly. Bring me up to speed. I want to know what effect last night had on Garden."

Squall glanced down at his desk. It was piled high with newspapers and reports, tall stacks of them which towered even higher than usual. "Honestly? It's a disaster, but we can deal. Dr Kadowaki assures me that the children are stable, which is a relief. None critical, thankfully. The students are pretty intimidated by the whole episode, so if one good thing's come out of this whole mess at least we might not get any rookies sneaking where they're not supposed to. We've managed to keep the whole thing quiet, but Xu's working on a press report as we speak. And as for Security, they're moaning that if we had enough money and more regulations then we might have prevented this whole thing. Don't worry about that, though. It's normal."

Quistis felt a load of relief slip from her shoulders. "That's good."

"Don't worry about things." Squall said. He smiled, a little cynically. "That's my job, after all."

"Is Cid helping you?"

"He'll be here soon. Was coming anyway. We're just about to close the deal on an important contract." His smile twisted. "Or we were. Although first indications are that the client will continue regardless of the current situation. It's a busy time." he added pointedly.

Quistis sighed. "Squall, I didn't come here just to talk about -what happened. I want a mission. Somewhere remote." She blinked. The light seemed even brighter than usual.

"You don't have to do a penance." Squall pointed out. "It wasn't your fault."

"I have to leave. It's just something I have to do. Squall, those children were my responsibility. Seifer, too. _I_ brought him back to Garden. _I_ made that mistake. Me."

"Quistis, listen to me."

"I need to-"

"Listen, dammit. Quistis, listen to me. It's more my fault than yours." Squall snapped. "It's not easy running Garden. I thought; well, it doesn't matter what I thought. I thought he'd be of some help."

"It's not-"

"Listen." It was an appeal, or as least as near to an appeal as Squall would ever make. "I've got the press and the parent-teacher association on my back. I need us to stay strong and I need us to stay together. And as for Seifer, well, there will be reprisals. He'll pay for it in his own way, believe me."

"I don't want revenge." Quistis said. She was surprised to learn that she meant it. "I just want to leave. For a while." she added hastily.

"There is one mission." Squall said reluctantly. "This very important contract I was talking about, it's in Esthar. And it's big."

Quistis raised an eyebrow. "How big?"

"Entire-Garden big. And if we were to get this contract-"

"What contract, Squall?"

"Then we could use more healing items. I need someone trustworthy to head north and cut a deal with the Shumi. Our stock's looking light, and we need more Phoenix Downs." He waved away Quistis's objections. "They're expensive, and it's a pity they're a closed market up there, but that's all there is. They've agreed to terms."

Quistis sighed. The Shumi were notoriously hard bargainers. She hadn't imagined travelling further north than Balamb -she'd had more than enough of Trabia's wintry wastes two years ago, when she'd gone to pick up Seifer- but the Shumi were hospitable, and generous to a fault. There were worse places to stay, and one of them was here.

Squall continued. "Don't worry. We've already negotiated the deal. They'll donate a full inventory of Phoenix Downs and feathers to Balamb in return for a fortnight's work clearing the areas around their village of creatures. It's a simple job, and usually I'd send somebody else, but if you want it-"

His question hung in the air.

Quistis didn't need to think twice. "I'll take the job."

Squall, to his credit, didn't ask if she was sure about the decision. "That's good. I'll assign you another experienced SeeD for backup. You can take some qualified cadets, as well, five or six-no, five. It'll be good for them. You ship out tomorrow, so I expect a full inventory of kit for eight men on Xu's desk by six tonight. You know the drill, after al-"

"You're letting me take cadets?" Quistis interrupted him.

"There's not much point sending you if you don't. Hard as you try, Quistis, there's no way you can wipe out all the monsters from 'round there in just two weeks."

"Squall, I don't think I can do it. I screwed up once, and some kids got hurt."

"No." Squall said flatly. "You didn't. Seifer screwed up, and you got landed with picking up the pieces. And from what I heard, you did that just fine." He looked at her." Do you want to stay, or not?"

"Yes-no, I mean, I want to go."

"Good. Like I said, I want inventory for eight, inclusive of you and one other SeeD. On Xu's desk. Eighteen hundred hours. Got that?"

Quistis nodded, stunned by Squall's adroit steamrollering of all her objections. "Are you sure I'll be all right?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't send you. It'll do you good. Buy some time."

Quistis sighed, uneasily. "I guess that's fine."

"Good. I'll be expecting your inventory."

Quistis nodded again. She rose unsteadily from the chair and pushed it into place with the toe of one foot. "I'll go and prepare, then. I'll see you…..sometime."

Squall nodded. He picked up a large stack of papers from his in-tray, a tactic which Quistis's brain recognised as one he used to dismiss clients. She was too tired to protest, and was halfway to the door before a thought that had surfaced at regular intervals over the last three weeks finally came to mind.

She turned on her heel on the red carpet and spoke to Squall's bowed head. "Why did you let Seifer stay in the first place?"

Squall grunted. He picked up a larger stack of paperwork and looked up at her hopefully, but Quistis would not be thrown off.

"Squall?"

"I thought it'd be good for Edea. He is her knight, after all, even if he spends most of his life trying to prove the exact opposite."

"How do you know it'll suit her?"

"I don't." Squall said, and Quistis knew that he was lying. Or not lying, exactly, just….not _not_ lying. The reasoning was too slick, too perfect, too unprofessional, and professionalism to Squall usually meant doing the opposite of whatever he thought he wanted.

"I don't think Seifer would ever go to Centra." she said.

Squall shrugged, as if her comment was neither here nor there.

"And you wouldn't risk Balamb for a personal reason like Edea." Quistis said. She tried to think laterally. "What's going on?"

Squall shrugged again.

"I'm not leaving until you tell me."

"Then don't leave. That suits me better than sending you off to the Shumi."

Quistis folded her arms. "Squall.." She had won now, she could sense it.

Squall picked up a single piece of paper and began to examine it in detail.

"Tell me."

"I need Seifer to fix Edea and I want Edea cured so that Cid will come back to Garden." Squall said, reluctantly.

"It won't work." Quistis told him.

"I think that I'm beginning to realise that now." Squall said. "But Cid was the reason. And I can't have Cid permanently-"

"-without Edea." Quistis finished. She didn't think that Cid had been Squall's _only_ reason for letting Seifer return-they had a lot of history, the Garden kids, and much as Seifer hated it, he was still a part of Garden-but it made sense.

Squall put down the paper. "So now you know."

"So now I know."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Why'd you want to know anyway?"

Quistis shrugged. "It was academic. You had too much to lose by letting Seifer stay and, frankly, what you were getting was never amazing."

"Has Seifer figured it out yet?"

"You must," Quistis said "be kidding."

"Good." Squall said.

Quistis was still thinking of the conversation the next morning, as her car ploughed over the cobblestones to Balamb docks. As usual, she had insisted on driving herself, to get there early and make sure all the cargo was stowed properly. The transport was already moored at the docks, hatches open, steel skin gleaming. That was something Quistis had expected. What she hadn't expected was the glimpse of packs and gear already stacked in the hold. And she certainly hadn't expected the small but rowdy group of SeeD cadets, laughing and pushing each other next to the craft. Beside them on the grey concrete stood a slim figure, her arms folded as she watched the students. She barked out a single word, thin shoulders rising and falling with the force of her shout, and all the cadets quietened right down and began to form a neat line, ready to board.

Fuujin.

Seifer's former second-in-command and not-quite best friend.

_Thanks, Squall. Thanks a bunch. _Quistis thought as she slipped the clutch into first and braked. _This is going to be interesting._

She felt immediately guilty as the thought crossed her mind. Here was Fuujin, pulling Hyne knew what strings to get the boat ready for Quistis (she slipped a surreptitious glance at her watch) and here she was, worrying about personal issues.

Quistis pulled into a parking space. She picked up her kitbag from the backseat, squared her shoulders and made her way across the quay to join the group. Fuujin spotted her halfway to the craft- though she'd probably noticed her long before that-and snapped to attention, her chin high, blacked boot heels clicking together. Quistis was caught off balance.

"ALL PRESENT, CORRECT."

"Thanks, Fuujin-" Quistis said meekly. She reached the end of the ramp. Somebody took her bag from her and tossed it on top of a professionally stacked pile of cargo. Somebody else started the ignition, inside the transport. Fuujin handed her a register and Quistis ticked off each name, ushering each cadet onto the boat. It all ran like clockwork, something Fuujin had a gift for, far too easy.

All the same, the journey was awful. Quistis had expected it to be, so of course it was. The cadets were too obviously intimidated by Fuujin to make much conversation, and Fuujin was never talkative at the best of times. The woman was a natural conversationalist in the way that Chocobos were natural Triple Triad players, and Quistis had suspicions that Fuujin was laughing at her, behind that cool poker face. No doubt the woman had infinite experience in dealing with Seifer's messy breakups, and by his standards this one was probably quite clean. Messy, she thought, would probably involve either stalking, or death threats, and then told herself sternly to stop thinking about him. After all, it wasn't Seifer she was worried about. It was Garden.

Quistis leant her cheek against the transport wall and felt cool metal on her face. "Sea's calm." she said.

"YES." Fuujin said. She said nothing more, for which Quistis was devoutly grateful. At least she'd tried.

They spent the rest of the journey in near-silence. The transport's engines whined with the weight, fording through each wave with the grace of a behemoth. The sea was nigh, and the boat lurched rather than skipped from wave to wave. Half way to Trabia, most of the cadets were the colour of pea soup, and Quistis wasn't feeling too well herself.

After four solid hours of vomit-dodging, she was glad when the ship finally docked at the tiny Shumi harbour. It wasn't more than a few planks lashed to empty metal drums, a cheap concession to all those who came to trade in the icy northern wastes. Neon lanterns hung from tall poles, producing a weak glow that made the students look anaemic and Fuujin positively spectral. The sun was setting, sky a uniform gun-metal grey. The Shumi dome glowed like a great jewel in the iron-hued landscape.

The cadets glanced around in the gathering evening. Most of them looked faintly horrified, and Quistis couldn't blame them. Close up, the Winter Island had all the charm and comfort of a maximum-security prison.

She looked up at the iron-grey cliffs, slapped a mosquito from her wrist and sighed. Grey cliffs, gravel, grey sky, grey washed-out sea. It wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind.

They walked from the landing stage to the geodesic dome of the Shumi city. Pale lights ignited as they reached the true entrance to the dome, a long slate-lined path which ran in a wide avenue straight to the front door. Motion sensors, Quistis thought, but the cadets looked impressed. Fuujin greeted the light with the same level stare as she greeted everything else in her life. Her kitbag must have weighed almost as much as she did, but she carried it uncomplainingly.

They saw no Shumi until they were well inside the dome and entering the circular lift which ran to the village proper, three hundred feet below ground level. Ten Shumi were crammed into the small space, all dressed in thick blue robes, the Shumi lucky colour.

Fuujin clipped the nearest cadet around the ear. "DON'T STARE."

One of the Shumi slapped a console and the lift jerked into life. As it descended they clapped their long hands together to welcome their guests and threw handfuls of pine needles, most of which went down the back of Quistis's hood.

The Shumi's throats, dappled with irregular grey splodges, bulged and bellowed. Their voices boomed around the hollow confines of the lift. Somebody struck up a traditional tune on an ocarina, something which Quistis could have done without. Shumi music ran heavily towards funereal a capella melodies which sounded like a Chocobo giving birth to Quistis's untrained ears.

She managed a wan smile and tapped the most flamboyantly dressed Shumi on one shoulder." You honour us."

The Shumi flapped one huge hand. His speech was heavily accented. "Balamb Garden. Friends of Laguna. Nothing too much trouble for Laguna's friends. Great occasion. Much rejoicing."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"GLAD." Fuujin repeated. "VERY."

"I am Quistis Trepe, and this is my second, Fuujin Komiya."

Fuujin stuck a hand out, all angles beneath her silk jacket. "THANK YOU."

The Shumi reached out formally and pressed its wide palm against Fuujin's narrow one. "Honoured."

Fuujin smiled.

Quistis gestured at her crowd of cadets. The musicians had herded them into a corner and the juniors looked slightly panicked at the onslaught of so much good humour. "These are SeeD cadets. Our students. They'll form part of the team to rid your surrounding areas of the monsters."

The Shumi nodded. It was old, Quistis knew, its narrow head sunk so deeply into the rolls of fat that covered its shoulders that it resembled a melted candle. "Truly honoured."

Quistis pressed her palms together, imitating the Shumi gesture of thanks. "Balamb thanks you." The diplomatic moves were coming back to her naturally, each painstakingly learned gesture and phrase word-perfect. _A good SeeD never gives offence unintentionally_, she remembered her one of her tutors saying.

The lift came to a halt in the midst of crashing chords. The musicians tucked their instruments away into the wide sashes of their robes and scooped handfuls of pine needles from the lift floor with their spade-shaped hands. Freed, the cadets made their surreptitious way across the lift to stand next to Quistis and Fuujin. Quistis was proud to see that most remembered the appropriate Shumi leavetaking gestures.

The oldest Shumi nodded its head. "Come. We have given you rooms, and it begins to be late."

Quistis nodded, gestured thanks and called the cadets to her.

The village was just as she remembered it. The statue of Laguna they had helped build had been installed on a large plinth in the centre of the main square. A cedar tree shed leaves onto the head and shoulders of the figure, making Squall's father look as if he had acquired a rather ill-fitting toupee. Laguna, Quistis thought, would have approved. She hid a smile behind her mittens.

It might have been dramatic justice that the house they were allocated had a particularly good view of the statue. Like most of the Shumi dwellings, it was a crablike hut with a central living area and two bedrooms, one for Quistis, one for Fuujin.

It was full dark before Quistis returned to her own room to unpack her kit. She had satisfied herself that the cadets were at least pretending to be preparing for bed, and when that was finished, she knew she couldn't put off meeting Fuujin any longer.

The smaller woman was seated cross-legged in an armchair, sharpening her shuriken with a dark stone and a small crystal vial of oil. She looked up with bird-bright eyes as Quistis entered the room. "WANT COFFEE?"

_Say no or you'll have to talk again_. "Yes, that would be lovely." _Damn._

Fuujin nodded and reached for the kettle. While Quistis kicked her boots off by the door, she threw handfuls of coffee powder into a pair of mugs and made them both a drink. Quistis's mug had a picture of a bug-eyed octopus, and a scrawled slogan in the indecipherable Shumi script.

"Thanks."

"NOTHING."

Quistis sat down. The décor was exotic but comfortable. There were several armchairs, tables of varying sizes, rugs on the floor. One wall was completely covered with shelves and alcoves of the kind the Shumi found so indispensable. The other held a large and ugly tapestry in three parts. The upper third was heavily worked in silver and blue thread to depict lightning bolts and snowflakes. The centre seemed to be a fanatically detailed plan of the village, a miniature geodesic dome overlapping feather-stitched trees and houses sewn from gold foil and thin strands of metallic wire.

Fuujin pointed. "CAN SEE HOUSE FROM HERE."

"Maybe it's a kind of map for newcomers." Quistis said.

"MAYBE." Fuujin replied. She moved to a comfortable armchair closer to the hanging, examining the bottom third of the tapestry in more detail. Like the top piece, this one was much more stylised and consisted of overlapping patterns of brown, orange and red thread. A tiny Moomba had been stitched carefully into the bottom right hand corner.

Quistis took a gulp of coffee. "It must be symbolic. I read once that the Shumi believe that heaven is deep in the earth where it's always warm. Hell's in the sky, where it's always cold."

"WHAT HAPPENS THERE?" Fuujin said practically. She traced one finger from the top to the bottom of the hanging.

"I think you get torn apart by snow demons or something." Quistis said.

"FUN."

"Mmm." Quistis said. The drink was milky, warm and pleasant. She shifted, sweating in her parka. It should come off, she decided. She put down her drink to pull the coat over her head, hesitating as the fur collar caught on something around her neck.

Seifer's present, she realised. In all her hurry to get out and leave, she'd forgotten to take the necklace off. But then, maybe this wasn't all bad. Maybe she could trade it. The Shumi artisans were always on the look out for odd pieces of machinery.

Quistis shrugged the parka off. She held her hair up with one hand, fumbling for the catch with the other. A few strands of hair caught in the clasp as she ripped it off, and she pulled a face. The necklace fitted neatly in the palm of her hand and she tossed it on her unpacked kitbag. She took her mug up again and almost dropped it as she noticed Fuujin watching her with a decidedly malevolent glare.

Quistis felt like a fool. "I-"

Fuujin gave her a Look. Quistis took the cowardly option. "I think we should really rest. It's going to be a long day-"

The knock at the door made them both jump. Quistis spilt her coffee down the back of her chair. Fuujin glared at the door, sank further back into her seat and tried to pretend that she hadn't been caught off-guard.

A deep Shumi voice boomed from outside. "Are you there? May I enter?" The language was slightly more fluent than the average Shumi, more colloquial.

They exchanged glances. Quistis's fingers moved to her belt, teasing out the strands of her chain whip. Fuujin drew her snowflake shuriken. Quistis had no idea where she'd been hiding it, though she knew Fuujin shared Seifer's ability to produce industrial quantities of weapons out of nowhere. "Of course." she called out

The Shumi that entered nearly filled the door. He looked uncomfortable, or at least as uncomfortable as Shumi ever looked. Different body language, Quistis thought.

She got up, leaving her coffee on the sideboard. "Can I help?"

The Shumi looked even more uncomfortable. The dark blotches on his pale and putty-like skin grew darker and his eyes blinked rapidly, sure signs of stress and embarrassment. "It is the negotiations-"

Quistis mentally groaned. The Shumi were meticulous, sharp traders, in the kind of way that made you double-check every document before you signed it for hidden clauses. She knew that Squall had arranged the contract details before they arrived. There shouldn't have been any negotiating left to do.

She mentally checked the terms. A full inventory of Phoenix Downs and feathers, Squall had told her, in return for two weeks' work clearing a ten-mile area around the village of creatures. "I can go and get the contract. I thought we had agreed."

The Shumi flapped its hands. It made the gesture of intense apology and stammered something about the summer being too warm, and a poor moulting season, its accent sliding into unintelligibility.

"Pardon?"

"The birds-"

Quistis frowned. "The contract's already been signed. " She let the silence that followed her comment settle.

The Shumi held up its wide hands. "Let me show you."

Fuujin and Quistis exchanged glances. Quistis nodded imperceptibly and then turned to the Shumi. "We'll go."

Fuujin's shuriken was nowhere to be seen as she rose from her seat. Her expression was as smoothly poker-faced as ever. They both pulled on fur-lined boots and followed the Shumi into the village.

The path they took was one Quistis remembered from her visit with Squall. The village was dark except for lamps burning in a few scattered windows. Trees and grasses rustled as they passed, incongruous in the vast cavern. It all looked so natural that Quistis had to prevent herself from looking up at the nonexistent sky. The Shumi had painted the cave roof black and added white dots that resembled stars, but there was still the suggestion of great weight, hidden girders.

"WHERE?" Fuujin muttered next to her as they passed the artisan's huts and moved off down another path, one that Quistis had never seen. She was walking very close, and her bony shoulder dug into Quistis's arm.

Quistis's fingers brushed the chains of her whip. _Not sure_, she whispered. _Wait and see._

"DON'T TRUST." Fuujin whispered flatly. "WHAT'S THIS?"

Quistis peered into the darkness. There was a gleam of dull brass in the night, a gleam, she saw, from the struts of a traditional Shumi dwelling. It was large, oval, and built much more heavily than the average house, all save the room, which was made of thin tin sheeting. Like a firework factory, Quistis thought, like a powder store.

Fuujin's fingers tapped lightly on her arms, semaphoring. _What do they keep in here?_

Quistis shrugged. She reached out to touch the Shumi's shoulder. "What do they do here?"

The Shumi looked even more confused for a moment, but then his expression cleared. He rapped on the door, dug into the pocket of his robe and produced a shining object which he laid reverently in Quistis's hands.

Quistis glanced down at the shape and was blinded. She closed her eyes as quickly as possible but the afterimage still burned, a glowing silhouette etched upon her vision. The last time she had held a phoenix feather in her hands had been two years ago, in the cloisters under the Deep Sea Research Centre. Quistis had been halfway through the duel with Ultima Weapon, though she'd had no way of knowing that at the time. The recollection brought back a powerful memory; sweat beading in her eyes, the whine of machinery and grinning fangs. Zell driven to his knees beside her, blood matted in Squall's fur jacket. Selphie pressed the gleaming feather into her hands, Quistis cast it on the floor and a bird erupted from the ashes….

_So that is what this place is. It's an aviary._

She glanced up, and wiped tears from her eyes with the furred back of a mitten. Their guide's knock had brought a second Shumi to the door of the strange dwelling. He, or she, or it, was heavily masked and gowned in leather, and wore thick gloves with gauntleted cuffs. The cuffs were scarred with white talon marks. On the right fist it held a bird, half as tall again as the Shumi's squat body. The long tail-feathers brushed the floor, its magnificent peacock-eyelets dragging in the dust. The bird's body was small compared to its magnificent furled wings, its head tiny, apple-sized. The phoenix lowered its head and yawned, extending a long, delicate tongue like silver wire. It glowed with a faint light.

Fuujin's eyes narrowed almost to slits in the glare. "SO THIS IS…" she said, then trailed off.

The Shumi in the door moved back so Quistis could see inside the barn-like building, There was no internal lighting, but the birds didn't need it. They gleamed and glittered, shone and soared and gave off light from every feather of their bodies. The heat was intense enough to make Quistis sweat inside her parka. She scanned the building, taking in every detail, the heavy fire-extinguishers placed upon every wall, the Shumi with brushes, raking the sand for every sign of a precious feather.

The phoenix on the Shumi's wrist raised its head. Its beady eye flicked from Fuujin to Quistis and back. It raised a clawed foot to scratch at its head and abruptly took off, soaring back into the building. Its wing brushed the Shumi's leather robe, leaving a bubbling welt that smelt of drowned cattle. The phoenix landed on the rim of a metal trough and dipped its head into the water, stepping in daintily. Drops of water rolled over its back, glowing like phosphorous. Another Shumi rushed in to collect the dregs.

"Some kind of chemical in the feathers?" Quistis murmured.

"MAGIC." Fuujin said, more prosaically.

Quistis tried to think more logically. "The feathers I understand, and the bathing water's the Phoenix Downs, right?" She received a quick nod in return, then continued. "I don't see any shortage, though."

"We have fewer birds this year." the leather-gowned Shumi said politely. "Would you like to view them?" He watched the phoenixes with wide eyes and an almost religious intensity.

"JUST DID." Fuujin said bluntly.

Their guide pointed to the side of the building, to a small open topped lift that ran alongside a huge pipe to the ceiling of the dome. "You can view them from above." He gestured at the ceiling. "It's a great honour. You should not refuse."

Quistis nodded. "All right."

Fuujin looked less happy, but she nodded her head stiffly.

The lift was small, open topped and there was just enough room for two people, if they packed tightly in. It was meant for one Shumi, Quistis assumed. As she brushed against Fuujin, Quistis realised that the other woman had her shuriken in hand. She reached for her belt under her parka and unhooked her whip just as the lift began to rise.

Quistis caught a glance of their Shumi guide waving as the lift shot upwards. For a moment it seemed as if they would be crushed against the struts, but the lift slowed as it reached the black, speckled ceiling. There was a click as a hatch disengaged and a whine of machinery. The lift rose sedately through the roof and then accelerated up a clear glass tube, travelling the three hundred feet to the surface with ease. Quistis caught a glimpse of the empty reception rooms in the dome itself through a window before the lift rushed on. At the top of the dome another hatch opened and the bite of icy night air rushed in to meet them as they came to a halt above the ice-covered glass surface of the Shumi village.

Fuujin leaned out to look all around them, grasping her shuriken in one hand. Quistis rested both elbows on the ornate bronze railing of the lift and looked down. Her breath smoked in the night air. The stars overhead blazed like white fire, peaceful and silent, and the pale snowfields glimmered almost as brightly in the darkness all around them. There were no other lifts, no other people to be seen, just Quistis and Fuujin and the silence of the great dome under their feet. Its icy surface ski-sloped away in every direction, lit dramatically by ice-blue lamps. The only external sign of habitation was the large metalled pipe that the lift had followed on its journey up to the surface. It jutted from the dome at right-angles, projecting from the roof like a chimney. Some kind of air-vent, Quistis assumed. She turned away and tipped her chin up to the stars. Despite the summer thaw, the greedy tundra wind tugged at her hair beneath her bobble-hat.

Beside her, Fuujin clipped her weapon to her belt and wrapped both arms around her shoulders. In the dark the moonlight gleamed from her pale hair, the silver fur of her parka and the metal of her snowflake shuriken. She looked like an ice statue, Quistis thought, and then she noticed something. A faint glow emanated from the chimney behind Fuujin. Phosphorescent, sulphur-yellow, it brightened, flickered and grew stronger. Quistis's hands automatically fumbled at her belt for her whip. The music of its chains skittered across the metal lift floor as she reached out to warn Fuujin, but the other woman had already drawn her shuriken. Light glittered madly from its razor edge.

And seconds later, the first phoenix erupted from the vent.

Fuujin stepped back into Quistis, shading her eyes as the magnificent bird rocketed into the sky. Its wings, wrapped tightly around its body in the snug swoop from the dome, unfurled in a spiral as it arched up to the sky. It threw back its head and screamed, crest erect. There was an answering echo from deep below the ground, and a second phoenix shot from the pipe. They were joined by another, and another, all glowing faintly in the dark as the last rays of the setting sun slipped below the horizon. Their wings flamed and rippled, giving the illusion of a much larger bird.

"They're…beautiful." Quistis said eventually.

Fuujin shrugged. "MEN. BIG DISPLAYS."

"Like Quetzalcoatl." Quistis corrected her.

Fuujin shrugged again. "LIKE MEN."

It took a few more seconds for Quistis to notice what Fuujin had already picked up on. While she had been watching the huge flamboyant birds, a few more phoenixes had emerged from the pipe. These were smaller, darker, their plumage all shades of tan and brown, and they sat on the rim of the pipe and chattered to each other in a clucking language of glottal stops. The larger phoenixes wheeled in the sky above, tossing amber sparks from the tips of their wings until one of the birds sitting on the pipe screeched loudly. The high keen echoed over the tundra and all the smaller birds flipped into the sky like catherine wheels. They left a fading vapour trail behind them in iridescent greens and blues as they climbed. The larger birds raced after them and they spiralled up into the sky until they were glowing embers. The whole display had taken maybe ten minutes.

"LOST?" Fuujin said. She gazed up into the black sky, turning only to gaze at Quistis with faint hostility.

"I think they'll come back." Quistis said. She was analysing what she had seen, modifying her worldview to take phoenixes into account. She remembered someone telling her in lectures, long ago, that the moon monsters had started as regular animals before they began to out-evolve each other in an arms race that had never stopped since. The phoenixes looked relatively normal in the face of so many spikes and talons, venom and horns.

"SHOW'S OVER." Fuujin said. It seemed that her hostility was growing by the minute, frosting onto her like the ice on the dome.

"That's a pity." Quistis said, and meant it on so many levels.

Fuujin said nothing. Despite Quistis's most fervent hoping, the phoenixes did not return.

Eventually Quistis felt like she had to say something. "Fuujin?"

"YES?"

"Do you blame me? Is that what this is?"

"NO." Fuujin said, grudgingly.

"We've got to work together."

"YES."

"And we can't do that if you don't talk to me."

"NO."

Quistis sighed. "Is this about Seifer?"

Fuujin only glared.

"It really wasn't my fault."

Fuujin looked away. "NO."

"I was stupid for getting mixed up in the whole thing. I shouldn't have let him do that."

Fuujin shook her head, violently. She was not wearing a hat, and her silver hair drifted in the wind like thistledown. "NO. SEIFER, MANY THINGS, STUPID. ENDING WORLD, STUPID. NOT YOU. YOU, SENSIBLE."

"I thought you were angry at me."

"NO. ANGRY AT HIM."

Quistis sighed again. "I didn't mean for it to be like that. He was drunk, really drunk, and I was so mad. I mean, imagine if nobody had reached those children in time."

"DID."

"I know, but it doesn't matter. I know you're his friend, and I appreciate that you're trying to back him up, but it's not like that and now I sound like I'm trying to justify myself to you, and that's not a good thing." Quistis realised that she was babbling.

"DOESN'T MATTER." Fuujin said kindly. "SEIFER, MORON. SOMETIMES.

"Yes."

"ESPECIALLY IF DRUNK. DRUNK ENOUGH TO BE STUPID. TOO SOBER TO FALL OVER."

"You've seen him like that before?"

"MANY TIMES."

"Mmm." Quistis said. "Interesting."

* * *

_Seifer:_

So you sailed away

Into a grey sky morning

Now I'm here to stay

Love can be so boring.

What was it you wanted?

Could it be I'm haunted?

But it's not so bad.

You're only the best I ever had

I don't want you back

You're just the best I ever had

Gin Blossoms: Grey Sky Morning.

* * *

Seifer woke up late the morning after, hungover despite the Hi-Potion and guilt-ridden despite his best and most inventive efforts. Guilt was a new emotion for Seifer. He did not _do_ guilty. He wouldn't have felt guilty if he'd been caught red-handed holding up a bank. But this was different.

Seifer was no stranger to monumental fuckups: he didn't so much make problems for himself as carefully construct them. But he'd always, always meant it. What kind of person accidentally locked a bunch of kids in with monsters? What sort of moron did something like that?

By nine a.m. he had progressed from lying comatose in bed to throwing up down the sink, the ascent of man in slow motion. It was about then that events caught up with him, in the shape of several Garden officials and rather more extremely irate SeeDs, two of them carrying a still-unconscious Zell Dincht,

Zell got off relatively lightly; they cut his pay back. Seifer didn't get paid, but he was pretty sure that if he'd been paid, he'd have given up that, too. He was too hung over and miserable to take most of it in, although he did remember thinking that if he'd known just how long he was going to be confined to barracks, he would have drank more beer in the first place.

He had one visit, from Raijin and Fuujin. Fuujin took one look at him, told him "STUPID!" and hit him upside the head. Raijin didn't say much of anything.

And by the time he got out of solitary, Quistis was long gone. A few careful enquiries brought him the information that she'd left for somewhere a very long way away-and he better not try and follow. Or else.

To tell the truth, following was the last thing on Seifer's mind. In fact, he didn't wander much at all, because he didn't trust himself not to hit the first person who made a smart comment. It was, he thought, the most mature decision that he'd made in a long while.

He tried visiting the machine shop only once. Nobody there said anything to him, nobody made any remarks. They all just sat and watched him with a disappointed look in their eyes, designed, he knew, as carefully as the machines, designed to make him prove that he would do better. But Seifer wasn't any kind of hero, so after a while he just gave up and went home. Nobody said anything then, either.

And that was another thing. Since when had he started caring what people thought of him?

Seifer was half way back to his room when he saw Xu. He had nothing to do there but he couldn't think of anywhere else to go, and he was half-expecting her to do the decent thing and just ignore him. Fat chance. She planted herself firmly in the corridor, blocking his way.

_The line for gloating over my misfortune, it forms to my left, _Seifer thought. He stopped, and glared at her, but she didn't move. In fact, she didn't say anything for a minute. The pause gave Seifer time to blow smoke right in Xu's face. Unfortunately, she was much shorter than he was, and it just drifted around her hair for a while before floating up into the ceiling.

The silence made Seifer feel acutely uncomfortable, like he was a cockroach or something. He guessed that that was the general idea. He tried walking around her, but she just moved to block his way, narrowed her eyes and poked him right in the chest. "Pleased with yourself?"

The question caught Seifer by surprise. "No."

Xu's expression flickered, just a bit, but Seifer's guilt and frustration had found its outlet. "What the hell is your problem? Fucking move your ass."

Xu ignored him. "I hope you're happy. You made her miserable. And now she's gone."

Enemies were never as annoying, Seifer thought, as when they were right. "We made each other damn miserable."

" You'll get over it." Xu said. "Go buy yourself a copy of Vogue or something. Or, given your standards, maybe a garage calendar."

"Fuck you, Xu." Seifer snapped. His first mistake, way he saw it, was getting into an argument with Xu in the first place. Quistis's friend had a tongue she liked to sharpen in the morning.

Xu smiled sweetly. "Do you know she almost resigned over you?"

"No." Seifer snapped with such force he almost bit his cigarette in half. SeeD was Quistis's life. He'd never imagined that she might decide to resign, had never asked her to. "But if you think I don't care, why the fuck are you telling me?"

Xu continued as if he hadn't spoken. "She couldn't stand to be here much longer. Went on a mission out in the middle of nowhere. If she ruins her career I'm holding you responsible."

"Like I care."

"You got off lightly. You always get off too easy."

Seifer inhaled fiercely on his cigarette. "Don't try it."

"Try what?"

"Don't fucking push me any more, because I don't care the hell whose secretary you are, I'll-"

"You'll what? Leave me in the Training Centre like all those little kids. You should go visit them some time. Show that you care. Oh, wait. You don't. Silly me."

Seifer could have killed Xu. He could, at the very least, have punched her, but he did neither of those things. Instead, he gritted his teeth and shouldered past her. Xu loosed a parting shot at his retreating back. "Leaving again? Try going for good."

Seifer turned round. "Yeah, I'm going away to figure out how to screw up Garden more. You should try it, Xu, 'cause it feels fucking amazing. Nobody expects me to give a shit, so why should I?"

He left her in the corridors and walked to his room cursing what he had done and thinking _Shit, maybe we shouldn't have told everyone, we shouldn't have let them know. We should have stayed in Trabia, where nobody cared. It all got complicated. It all went wrong._

It wasn't just that Quistis had left-or maybe it was. Fuujin had gone with her, the traitorous bitch, and Raijin wasn't much of a conversationalist. Seifer had invented such clear rules for them; himself as the hero, his friends as the sidekicks, that he'd actually believed them at the time, and forced the others to believe it too by violence or sheer force of personality.

By the time he had reached his room he had come to some kind of a decision. He didn't have anything to do any time soon. Nobody was making him do anything and they couldn't kick him out. Shit happened. And he was fed up of it happening to him.

So he stayed in bed for two days and then on the third day he got up and went to Squall's office.

It was very early, far too early for there to be anybody around. Xu's desk was empty. Seifer had a malicious urge to feed the contents of her in and out-trays through the shredder, maybe leave them scattered round her chair like confetti. But the shredder was switched off and he couldn't find the button to make it work, so after a while he just went up to the massive double doors and shoved.

To his surprise they swung open easily. The office inside was quiet, shaded with moonlight, and very empty. There was nobody around, and Seifer found what he had come for in a matter of seconds. Squall hadn't moved Hyperion.

Seifer picked his gunblade up, sat on the corner of Squall's desk and checked the weapon over. He rubbed a spot of real or imagined rust from the blade and checked the gun for bullets. It was empty, which didn't surprise Seifer, but he couldn't be bothered to look for ammunition. It could be found, bought or stolen, he wasn't much concerned which.

He secured the sword in his belt and turned to leave, then paused. There was money on the top of the desk, three or four crumpled notes. Seifer reached for it out of habit and then stopped himself. The place would have enough of a shitfit when they learned that he was gone without stealing on the way out. Besides, he didn't _need_ Squalls money.

He was almost to the doors when the fact that they were closed registered fully. They were closed now, and they hadn't been five minutes ago when he walked into the office.

Seifer checked the weapon in his belt and remembered that he was out of bullets. The sword part of Hyperion would do fine, but he liked to have the gun loaded, as insurance. "Come out, you bastard. I know you're there."

Nothing.

"What do you want? I've had enough. I'm fucking leaving, Squall."

Nothing. The room was silent.

Seifer shook his head. He must be crazy, talking to the shadows. Squall wasn't there. He was in bed, probably, with Rinoa. His eyes sharpened as he imagined a flicker of movement in the deepest shadow, but it was nothing. There was a subtle change in the shadows surrounding the desk, but it didn't look like anything. It was weird how normal objects could look so much like people in the dark…

Like people…

Seifer swore, a soft whisper which echoed around the steel and glass. "Fuck me."

Squall looked at him levelly from his seat on the desk. "Leaving already?"

"How'd you always manage to be so fucking quiet?"

Squall shrugged.

"I'm leaving this place. Going-"

"Where to?" Squall asked quietly.

Seifer opened his mouth to tell him that of course he knew, of course he had a plan sorted out, and shut it again. He was just about to tell Squall that he had somewhere to go and Squall better not have him followed when something strange happened.

"_Squall?"_

The strangeness was a voice in the room, not Seifer's, not Squall's. It sounded a lot like Rinoa to Seifer, faint and breathy. Only there was something odd about it, like it was …more Rinoa, somehow. Another person, someone without Seifer's history, might have thought the phenomenon fascinating. The ex-knight found it a pain in the ass. "Hyne, shut _up_."

Squall tilted his head. "_Rinoa?"_He was watched Seifer as if nothing had happened, but the ex-knight had a disturbing feeling that he could hear every word. This was part of the sorceress thing, the old, all-or-nothing days, and he didn't like it.

_"What are you doing up at this time?_

_"Nothing."_

Seifer smirked. Squall's girlfriend, checking up on him. How touching.

"_Is that Seifer? Why are you talking to him?"_

_"It's a long story.." _Squall's voice, in Seifer's head, was almost pleading.

_"All right, honeybunch,"_

"Honeybunch?" Seifer said. His smirk increased in size.

_"I'll come up in a minute." _Squall said, His mental voice sounded more mature than his speaking one, to Seifer's ears. Deeper, somehow, and more confident. The way, probably, that Squall sounded to himself, in his own head.

_"Darling, I'm fine. Why don't you finish up what you're doing. Look, I love you, see you later." _

"Why don't you get a room?" Seifer snapped.

Squall broke the connection. "Why don't you ever know when to shut up? And we have a room, thanks for asking. We have several."

Seifer shrugged. "Not my fault if you guys want to get all personal inside my head. It's kind of gross."

"You heard?"

"It was hard not to." Seifer said. His hand went to the hilt of Hyperion in his belt. He didn't think Squall was trying for a fight, in fact he wasn't sure what he was trying for at all, but it was good to be prepared. "And, you know, I really don't give a shit what you do with Rinoa, but honeybunch? Wrong."

"But you heard Rinoa. Interesting."

Seifer didn't think twice about it. "Yeah. Sure. Why?" He moved closer, and his hand slipped off the hilt of his sword. Whatever Squall was planning, and he had a nasty feeling, and an even nastier one that he'd agree to it-it wasn't going to involve violence.

"Because you shouldn't be able to. Because I'm her knight and this, as you well know, is how we talk to each other sometimes. And that is why I want you to go visit Edea."

"It won't help her."

"Maybe not."

"It'll just fuck her up more." Seifer snapped. "I already said this."

Squall's shadow was black against the moonlit window. "It'll get you out of here. Mistakes like the one that you made tend to make you very unpopular."

"I didn't mean it. I fucked up, right, and I'm sorry. Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm sorry." Seifer snarled at him. Nothing about this was going the way he wanted it to, which was pretty much a blueprint for his life to date.

Squall didn't move. "It'll do."

"What do you mean, it'll do? I'm trying to repent here or something. Shit, I don't know what I'm doing here."

"I think," Squall said helpfully, "you were about to steal Hyperion and bust your way out."

"Not steal. The sword isn't yours. Anyway, I changed my mind." Seifer said. H moved closer to the desk and took a place on the dais, so he could look Squall right in the eye.

Squall didn't even blink. "Good. Do something right for a change. It won't kill you."

"I thought coming back here was the right thing to do." Seifer said ruefully." Look where that got me." He wasn't sure whether he was talking to himself or to Squall at this point, and didn't much care.

"Think of it as parole." Squall said. "Time off for mediocre behaviour."

Seifer couldn't be bothered trying to fight it. "Yeah. Okay. I'll go. Shit, you want to get rid of me 'bout as much as I want to leave."

"That's true." Squall said.

"Thought so." Seifer said. He caught the flash of some strong amusement in Squall's eyes. "What now?"

"That's interesting."

"What's interesting about it? I've said I'll go."

"Just interesting, that's all."

"Fuck you, Squall." Seifer snapped. He was tired, tired of feeling like the bad guy, tired of holding no card when the person smiling at him across the table had a full pack, all the kings and the aces, and all of his money.

"Do you _want_ to walk all the way to Centra?"

"Nah. Truth is, I don't want to go. But hell, Centra's got to be better than here." He thought. "Hell's got to be better than here."

"I'll order a transport." Squall said. "Immediately, although you might have to go and get the captain."

"You can do that?" Seifer asked. He didn't bother to think too much about it. It was what he wanted, after all.

Squall turned away. He picked up a piece of paper, scrawled a room number on it and gave it to Seifer. "Ego non adepto, in sterco sic ego summissus meus amicitia." The casual sentence translated itself in Seifer's head as '_I didn't get into this shit so I can let down my friends'._

"I'm not your fucking friend."

"Whatever." Squall said. "And you can take the sword with you."

Seifer looked down at the four feet of blued Galbadian steel that was Hyperion, then back again at Squall. "What sword?"

"Centra's monster-infested. You don't go there without weapons."

"Nnuh. Thanks." Seifer said. He hated having to be grateful to Squall, and it was a situation he'd been in far too much over the last few weeks. But visiting Centra was something to do. On the face of it, he supposed there were worse places he could go. Edea had enough sympathy for the whole world, let alone Seifer.

* * *

Zell had a headache.

It was an annoying headache, the kind that felt like somebody was trying to hammer three-inch roofing nails in through one temple. It was three in the morning, and he was tired. His current headache was nothing to compare with the epic, brain-bursting headache he'd enjoyed two weeks ago after his night out in Balamb, but it still hurt. Of course that might have had something to do with the previous night not having been spent drinking whatever Seifer Almasy put in front of him, then waking up feet-first in a broom cupboard. But it was bad enough.

The mike in front of Zell buzzed and he picked up the receiver. "SeeD group ZZ-9? Do you read?"

A tinny voice emanated from the receiver_. "Hey?_

"Do you read?" Zell questioned it. He picked up a screw-top bottle from the desk, opened it and down two aspirin.

_"Yeah?" _A second, equally tinny voice.

"Great." Zell said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster at three in the morning, having been up half the night monitoring radio exercises. "Then-".

_"You ever wonder why we're here?"_

"What?"

_"It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it? _

"Are you reading me?" Zell asked the microphone? "Hello? Are you out there? People?" He ran a hand through his blond hair. "Is this working?"

_"Why are we here? Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a god watching everything? I don't know, man, but it keeps me up at night."_

"You do realise I can hear everything you say?"

_"No, like, why are we here? Here, I mean, in this fucking wood-"_

"Obviously not."

_"I knew that."_

"You're here because you're on a SeeD training exercise! Look, can you see Squad ZE-8? Squad ZE-8-oh, what's the use?"

_"Do you want to talk about it?"_

_"No.."_

Zell groaned and flicked a switch on the microphone. "May I remind you that your encrypted ultra-wide band communication channel is to be reserved only for discussions pertinent for the tactical situation? Each of your three available radio mikes should only be used for the execution of official SeeD legitimate activities. Monitoring terrorist activities is –"he paused and glanced down at a sheet. "-one of the examples of official camera use. Gossiping is not an official activity. Repeat, gossiping is not an official activity."

Seifer leaned over his shoulder. "Neither are deep soul-searching philosophical fucking questions, asshole."

Zell gaped. "No gossiping. Report back at four hundred hours. Four hundred. Zell out." He slammed the mike down. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hyne, not you." Seifer said disgustedly. He leant over Zell's shoulder, dribbling cigarette ash all over his mission reports. "He said a transport. This is room twenty, right? They let you drive one of those things?"

Zell snatched the papers away. "How long've you been here?"

Seifer ignored him. "What're you doing? Some kind of radio exercise?"

"It's classified." Zell said indignantly. He'd made a point of making no more than surreptitious enquiries about Seifer. He'd heard that he'd been in solitary a while, but the bastard looked just fine.

"Suure it is. Cadet training's so fucking secret."

"What do you want?"

Seifer slouched into the nearest chair. He screwed a sheet of paper he had been holding into a ball and threw it into Zell's already overflowing bin. "I need a favour."

"You must be joking."

"I need you to take me to Centra. Now."

"You _have_ to be joking." Zell said hopefully.

"I said I'd go see Edea." Seifer said. "Squall reckons me visiting'll cure her and I said I'd go, on condition he'll send a pilot to take me. It shouldn't be a long job. Reckon we'll be there and back, soon as I see her and Squall works out it's done no fucking good."

"I-" Zell stuttered. He blinked, hoping that Seifer's sudden appearance was due to an overdose of pain medication and then noticed that Seifer was carrying a sword. The sword was black, four feet long, and looked vaguely familiar.

"And if what you've had to deal with over the last two weeks is anything like me, you'll be glad to get away from this shithole." Seifer said.

"My assignment?" Zell squeaked. "And I'm nearly sure you're not supposed to have that." He pointed at the sword.

Seifer ignored him. "It'll be covered. Won't take long. We could leave in the morning."

Zell swigged down another gulp of water. He narrowed his eyes. "How'd I know you're telling the truth?"

Seifer pointed at the phone in a corner of the office. The office itself was small and covered by graffiti from other bored listeners. "Call him."

"Are you crazy? He won't be there! It's Hynedamn three-o-clock in the morning!"

"Call him."

"It's on your head."

"Do I look like I care? Call him. His office number."

Zell stabbed a finger at the keypad, held the receiver up to his ear and listened to Squall tell him that he was awake. And that Seifer was telling the truth. And that he was allowed the sword. And that a transport would be ready, and that he wanted Zell to drive it. He continued for a while, telling Zell some things that Zell was sure Seifer knew already and some things he was pretty sure he didn't, and after that he told him good night and put the phone down.

Zell held it up to his ear and listened to the dial tone, trying to postpone the moment of telling Seifer that he was right. "Fine." he said eventually. "I'll meet you in the garage at ten hundred hours. We'll take a car, go down to the docks. You've got until then to pack. Squall said to take some stuff for Edea."

Zell had expected Seifer to look downcast at lack of sleep, but he just shrugged as if less than seven hours sleep was something that happened to other people. "Okay."

Zell reached for the aspirin for the second time in fifteen minutes. "See you there."

* * *

Seifer didn't even bother to pack until nine the next morning. He spent the rest of the night alternately sleeping and cleaning Hyperion with a dedication which bordered on the obsessive. The blade was the first thing he packed, deep at the bottom of his kitbag. He'd seen the way Zell looked at the sword, and he wasn't asking for more trouble. For once, he had more trouble than he could cope with. He stuffed some clothes in and shoved the stapler-weapon deep down the side of the bag. Zell had said take something for Edea, and Seifer was pretty sure that the stapler would kill rats. It might be useful.

It was nearly half past nine when he heard a knock on the door. Expecting Zell, he zipped the bag up, slung it over his shoulder and opened the door.

The person who stood there was nearly a foot shorter than the one he had been expecting. Selphie had her hands on her hips. She wore a tan leather cowboy hat, the rim pierced with golden rings. It tipped down over her face and cast her eyes in shadow. "I just heard from Quistis." she said.

Seifer frowned. "So?" He tried to shut the door but Selphie was too fast. She jammed one boot in the gap and then just when he thought he'd won she slipped through into Seifer's room as the door slammed shut behind her.

"You do know she's gone to Trabia?"

"No." Seifer said. He found Selphie's tone of voice eerily familiar. It was as if all Quistis's friends, without the chance to tell Seifer exactly what they thought of him in captivity, had saved everything up for later.

"I wasn't going to say this, but I heard you were leaving somewhere and I thought this had to be said and it better be said now before you go again."

Seifer let his kitbag drop to the floor. He was damned if he was going to let one of Quistis's friends humiliate him again, on his own ground." He reached for the door, yanked it open. "Get out."

"I know you guys had some kinda Kleenex affair-"

Seifer's vocabulary of sexual vernacular failed him for the first time in his life. "Kleenex?"

Selphie looked as if she had never heard anything as stupid as Seifer. "Kleenex. Blow'an throw."

It was like being attacked by a chocobo chick, Seifer thought. A perverted one, at that.

"Look, get the hell out. It's nothing to do with you."

Selphie leant forwards. "This is Garden. We stick together, but you never knew that, did you? So you've got problems. Big deal, so has everyone else. What you don't do is spread them round, tough guy. Just because you've had it hard doesn't automatically give you the right to shit on other people. We gave you a chance and you just did exactly what you wanted to do."

Seifer couldn't argue with the last part. The difference, he knew, was that in his earlier days at Garden what he wanted to do and what the staff wanted him to do-ie, train with gunblades- coincided, more or less. This time, they had clashed

Selphie cocked her head, increasing her resemblance to a bird. Her hat tilted crazily. "What're you doing?"

"Packing."

"What for?"

"You know what you just said? All those things I didn't do? I'm doing one of them."

Selphie looked puzzled.

"I'm going to Centra." Seifer said. "Now get the hell out."

"You're visiting Edea?" Selphie said. She almost smiled. "Fi-nally. It only took two months."

* * *

The list was taped lopsidedly to the centre of the instrument panel. _Basic Flying Rules_, it read.

_Rule One: Try to stay in the middle of the air._

_Rile Two: Do not go near the edges of it._

_Rule Three: The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, _

_buildings__, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there._

Seifer flicked it with a nail. "Doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."

"It's not meant to." Zell said, and ignored him. Seifer was hunched in the co-pilot's seat, in camo fatigues and a black mood which darkened the closer they sailed to Centra. Zell would have said something, but the best part of fifteen years of rather brutal intimidation hadn't entirely been erased by one drunken night. So he didn't.

Zell checked their bearings, made a minute adjustment to the course. Centra was a thin dark line on the horizon, but all the islands looked the same and it was easy to get lost.

"Where are we?"

"Almost there." Zell looked up. "You can see the lighthouse to the right."

"Looks different."

Zell shrugged.

They landed a short while later, the craft beaching itself in the shallow water of the lagoon. Zell went round back to unload a few crates of provisions Balamb had sent with them. He opened the cargo bay and shoved the plastic boxes out into the shallows where they lay with surf lapping at their sides. Both of their kitbags he tossed onto the sand, well out of reach of the waves.

Seifer jumped down into the shallow water and stood looking towards the orphanage. The buildings were almost hidden behind a headland, but they were still ruined. Zell glanced at the expression on his face and almost, almost understood.

"It's a wreck."

"Been like that for along time." Zell said noncommittally. He took off his shoes and threw them onto the beach, jumping into the water to stand next to Seifer.

Seifer waved an arm around the barren desert. "If you're the good guys, then what exactly is she doing out here?"

"She's safe." Zell said. He heaved a crate out of the water, and went back for more. "And you could help."

"Doesn't look safe to me."

"Safe for other people. Look, I'm dyin' here, could you please-"

"Fuck other people."

Zell gave up. "So what happened, you and her?"

"Don't know." Seifer snapped. "Now fuck off."

Zell would have liked to have pointed out that since he was the one doing the unloading, the onus was on Seifer to fuck off if he wasn't doing anything. But he didn't. This approach, he found, worked just as well, because he looked up to wipe sweat from his eyes after a particularly heavy crate and found that Seifer had wandered off.

* * *

The landscape suited his mood, Seifer thought. It was far more arid than he remembered as a child. He couldn't decide whether his memories were hopelessly rose-tinted or if whatever catastrophe that had ripped through the house had devastated the land as well. Still. It looked like shit.

He walked uphill, cutting through the straggling bushes and terracotta rocks to the orphanage. The landscape reminded him of Southern Trabia, of the maquis surrounding the holiday resorts he'd worked in. The sagebrush and dusty stones made him ache for the olden days, when he'd had no problems that couldn't be solved by more cash or more ammunition, and that sudden simplification made him wonder if he should just give up and let go and walk into the desert. He'd done it before, after all.

He worked his mouth and spat. It dried on the stones within seconds, and he scrubbed his boot over the mark. A stupid idea, that was all. Centra was vast, and this was the nice bit. Sure, it sounded romantic but within three days of wandering around in the blazing interior he'd be happily drinking his piss and eating his shoes, and-

Seifer's rather morbid train of thought was interrupted as he came out from the boulders. The house was not far away, but that wasn't what had caught his attention.

Around his feet, the desert bloomed.

It had been eight long years since Seifer had left the island, and maybe, he thought, his memories were as fucked up as the rest of him. But the flowers were hard to forget. Seifer had heard about the freak freshwater springs in certain parts of Centra which allowed flowers to blossom out of season, but when they were kids they'd all believed it was Edea's doing.

Seifer glanced around at the field. Seifer was no gardener, and so he didn't even notice the lack of inconvenient weeds, stinging nettles and young trees encroaching on Edea's flower field. There were rosebushes, and some things he was pretty sure were poppies, and about a million more that he didn't know the names of. It seemed damn complex for a spell, but maybe it was. Edea was a sorceress, after all. Seifer was prepared to admit he still knew almost nothing about what the witches did, but after what had happened during the wars surely a few flowers weren't out of the question, summer or no summer. Magic, he guessed, was wherever you found it. It had always worked for him.

He walked through the field, trampling perfect blossoms under the worn soles of his boots, and up to the house. It was a mess, worse close up than from a distance, and even from the boat it had looked as if somebody had driven a bulldozer in through the back door of the orphanage and out through the front. The orphanage had survived the Lunar Cry which destroyed half of Centra, but eight winters' worth of storms had ripped it apart. At least, Seifer hoped it was storms that had done the damage. He was sure even he would remember blowing up something this big. He kicked at a rock, and looked back for Zell, but the transport was out of sight over the ridge and he was alone except for the wind.

The sun was warm on his back, bleaching the crumbling ruins all around him. A lizard tracked over a stone and disappeared into a tiny crack. The whole site looked very old, Seifer thought, as if it had never been inhabited.

He made his way around to the beach side of the house, tripping over the stubs of broken pillars and sticks of shattered furniture.

And then he turned, and saw Edea.

* * *

Well, thanks for reading and reviewing, everyone! There are a couple of homages in this chapter, the most obvious one being the 'Red versus Blue' dialogue in Zell's radio mission. The phoenixes are very much indebted to the ones in Pratchett's 'Carpe Jugulum.'

Altol : Mwaa. Didn't like that chapter too much. I spent far too much time on this one, and I think on the whole I'm more happy with it. Eleven chapters in a year, though. I'm getting slow.

Ardwynna Morrigu: It was the alcohol.

Breaker-one: I don't abandon fics. It's just taking a bit longer, as my work schedule has rocketed. This WILL be finished. I think my target of one chapter a month is quite realistic.

Ghost 140: At least this time he didn't intend for anyone to get hurt. The first step is to realise you HAVE a problem-

Jack Hanek: Oh, Seifer IS inclined to hurt people. But he's coming to realise that her better either a/get permission first or b/be really sneaky about it. I'll read your stuff, promise, but I'm in London at the moment, writing this on my sister's floor on a dial-up connection.

Kjata: ta! Much appreciated.

Nynaeve77: Quistis isn't used to a personal life. It bothers her.

seatbelts: I spend waay too much time on this stuff than is healthy for me.

Sulou: Seifer has indeed blown it. They'll get over it.

Superviolist

Thistledemon: the A+ ass comment made my day.

Tunsis; uh, thanks:D

Verdannii: Thanks for reading!


	12. Chapter Eleven:Dreams

Recovering The Satellites

* * *

Had a dream I could turn back time.

Had to stop to rewind my memory.

Had a vision of a ruby sky, we were riding high on our own pink elephant.

Another day in this fucked up life,

Another struggle just to get through nine to five.

Maybe it was only ego talking, but I always thought we were innocent.

How are you?

David Usher: How Are You?

"I prefer to be called her knight. This has always been my dream."

-Seifer Almasy

* * *

Chapter Eleven: Dreams

The air was still, Centra's ever-present wind fading for a minute. The sun was hot on the back of Seifer's head. He scratched the back of his neck, hunching his shoulders against the sun. Harsh avian noises drifted in from the beach and he glanced up, right hand going automatically to the hilt of his gunblade. The black metal was almost too hot to hold comfortably.

The sky was clear. _Just birds._ Seifer thought. _Not everything's a monster, even in Centra… _

He returned his attention to Edea. She stood by the ruins of a stained copper washing frame, her back to the beach, looking just the same. Narrow shoulders, fair skin, smooth dark hair, wide eyes. Edea.

"Everybody told me you were dead." she said into the silence.

Her steady gaze reminded Seifer of the many times she'd caught him doing something that he shouldn't. He wondered how to explain things. "They thought I was."

Edea shook her head slightly. She said nothing else, leaning into the gusts of wind that made her long hair ripple down her back.

The sun was white-hot, casting small sharp shadows among the broken ruins. Seifer slunk back a step, drawing back into the shade of the nearest wall. As he moved into the shadow the surrounding ruins wavered in front of his eyes, hazing in the thirty-degree heat.

He shook his head slightly and abruptly remembered his manners. "How're you?"

"All right." Edea replied. She spoke very precisely, as if she didn't believe a word of it.

Seifer looked at her cynically. "Bullshit." he said, remembered just who he was talking to and quickly chose a less obscene contradiction. "I don't think so."

Edea ignored the comment. She smiled widely, and the shadows left her face so quickly Seifer couldn't recall just how miserable she had looked. "How _are_ you?"

The expression on her face was open and trusting and made Seifer remember that he had half a dozen rather efficient murders to his credit.

He shrugged.

Truthfully, he would have been much happier on a battlefield swinging a sword into somebody's head, but that wasn't the kind of thing you could tell to anybody's mother, let alone yours. He risked a glance over his shoulder, but Zell must have still been unloading. They were alone.

"I'm okay. Where's Cid?"

Edea frowned slightly, and the sun threw the tiny wrinkles at the corner of her eyes into sharp relief. "He's at Balamb."

The ex-knight felt a stab of relief. The last thing he wanted right now was Cid's solicitude, his vest and his sympathy getting in the way, making tea. This felt right. Just him and Edea.

The way it was, part of his brain informed him. His vision shaded for a minute, a high-pitched, almost subliminal buzzing in his ears. _Probably the sand-dune midges_, Seifer thought, and ignored it. _That or the heat_. It was hotter than Ifrit's breath out on the beach, even in the shade. He blinked and leant a hand against the derelict walls for support, the marble cool and smooth against his fingers.

Edea, out in the full sun, didn't seem to feel the heat. She looked happy, though, and he felt a stab of guilt at not returning sooner. This wasn't so bad.

"Uh, how are things?" he asked her, running out of subjects for small talk.

Edea clasped her hands. Her long fingers were very pale against her grey dress. "I keep myself busy. Charity work, sewing, reading. Cid keeps me in touch with Balamb."

Seifer could imagine her in exile, doing favours for others at arm's length. He looked at her carefully, surprised by how normal she appeared. From Quistis's descriptions he had expected floods of tears, some evidence of things plainly not being right. Edea looked so stable, it was crazy. Older, maybe, but that was to be expected, shorter, too, which surprised him. He'd been so young at the orphanage that all adults seemed built on a larger scale and in the wars he hadn't noticed much.

Edea tilted her head, still smiling, and her eyes caught the sun, the irises the shifting gold of aura stones. They hadn't changed at all, Seifer realised dreamily.

The sunlight around him flickered and disappeared. Edea's milk-pale face swam closer, her eyes liquid and concerned. There was the sensation of marble cold at his back, and then even that disappeared. He closed his eyes, sick-

-and opened them to artful mood lighting, a dark night in the Presidential Palace in Deling City. The floor was covered with plush burgundy carpet, gold edged, expensive, and probably worth more than Seifer was himself. Galbadian soldiers were stationed at regular and aesthetic intervals along the elegant corridors, drafted in to replace Deling's now defunct or deceased security forces. Their eyes followed Seifer as he walked past, watching him with a mixture of contempt and fear. The knight knew exactly what they thought of him, and didn't much care. The ornate chandeliers would have been more use against an enemy than the apprehensive soldiers in their smart silver and blue uniforms.

Unfortunately there were no enemies left for the moment, something which annoyed Seifer immensely. There was nothing to fight in the palace and not much to do either, for all its expense. Most of the staff and guests had fled, and those few that stayed were too wary, frightened or sensible to leave their rooms.

Seifer prowled the empty halls endlessly, Hyperion slung across his shoulder or tapping restlessly on the floor as he walked, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing did.

Despite this, he felt apprehensive, and more jumpy that he had any right to be. His fingers itched for a cigarette, a gun, something to do. He hadn't smoked in two years and there was nothing to kill so he snapped his fingers restlessly as he walked, murmuring spells under his breath. Sparks danced and died in his hands.

He had had no dreams for almost a day, and without them nothing felt simple. A casual observer might have pointed out that he hadn't slept in more than two days, but the sorceress's dreams had nothing to do with sleep. They helped him see, forged him into something harder, better, more focused and at the same time more inhuman than before.

_And hopefully_, Seifer thought, _less fucking inept_.

With them, everything felt right, this was his time, and he was in the right place, doing whatever she wanted. Without them, he was just a weirdo with a sword and an older woman complex. Without them, he felt lost. Worse, the absence of dreams meant that the sorceress was most displeased.

Seifer turned a corner, navigating on instinct and memory. As he drew closer to Edea's suite the hallways became more lavish, ceilings high enough for the architect to have squeezed a second suite of rooms in between this corridor and the one above. Seifer's dirty boots sank an inch into the thick pile of the carpet.

Even without the subtle cues that he was approaching an area of the palace reserved for the powerful or extremely rich, Seifer would still have known exactly where the sorceress was staying. He could have named her location to the nearest metre if anyone had bothered to ask him. It had been half a day since the botched attempt on Edea's life. She'd spent most of that time shut in her suite, the heavy curtains drawn against the pale morning light and her crimson mask pulled down over her face. Neither the dim light nor the solitude seemed to bother her.

Seifer shivered. They bothered _him_.

He ran a hand through his hair as he approached Edea's suite. It was a nice one, with a view of the triumphal arch if she had deigned to open the curtains. Given the previous evening's events, Seifer wasn't too sure about the appropriateness of the view, but then he wasn't entirely sure about anything any more. Anyway, she hadn't complained.

The carpet under his feet changed to patterned tiles as he neared the door. He stretched out his hand to turn the handle and stepped back as the door slammed open by itself. It did not particularly surprise Seifer; he had come to expect a certain amount of stage-management from the sorceress. He entered.

Edea was seated in the centre of the room, just as he had been expecting. Her head flicked to the side as he walked in, her face flawless and thick with theatrical makeup. "You are late." she said.

Seifer sank to one knee to the ground in front of her, gloved fingers brushing the tiles. "Forgive me, My Lady."

Edea kept him waiting for several long minutes before she replied. Her voice was not particularly loud, but it echoed throughout the large, shadowed room and raised dust from the drapes that curtained the windows. No cleaners were allowed in to disturb the sorceress's privacy. Seifer watched the dust motes as they floated to the floor and thought that it was a rule that she'd have to break, sooner or later.

"Report, my Knight." Edea said.

Seifer did.

He didn't have much to tell her, not really. He'd lost. The last thing he remembered was lying on the matting of the triumphal float, watching Edea fight the SeeDs, thinking that he should do something about it and knowing that he couldn't. He told her about the transfer of the prisoners instead, hoping to claw his way out of disgrace by reminding her that he'd done just as she asked.

The sorceress watched him.

Seifer watched himself.

He looked shorter than he remembered, shorter, and much more tired.

_Hyne, I looked like shit, _he thought_. Hell, why didn't someone tell me to lie down. Or take it easy, you stupid fuck…_

"Seifer?"

Sunlight stung his eyes. He wondered for a second if this was a different memory.

"Seifer?"

_The orphanage_, he thought, then _Centra,_ and felt disorientated, glancing around at fluted marble columns and splintered wood. A shadow fell across his face. Seifer glanced up and recognised Edea, her face clear of makeup, hair loose, clothes severely plain. She had the same eyes, he realised, but none of the aura of magic that had surrounded her like a halo.

Her voice had an edge to it, worry, or fear. "Is the transport here? Is there anybody else?"

Disorientation again, a stabbing headache. "Matron.."

"Hyne's-_sake_-"

Her long fingers reached out and touched his arm, cool and reassuringly tangible against his skin. It took a few seconds for the contact to dissolve again into blackness, a cool northern summer, blending into autumn, red velvet, patterned tiles and a chair grand enough to be a throne.

He had just enough time to realise that he was viewing the same scene through Edea's eyes before the memory caught him up, entirely.

"Oh, _shit_-"

Edea was worried about Seifer.

She had worried about him in a low-grade, motherly fashion for most of the last fifteen years, so it was nothing she wasn't used to. Learning that he was not in fact dead had required a certain attitude adjustment, but that was easy. To her eyes, he didn't look much different, though she fancied him slightly taller. The brittle swaggering confidence she remembered had been replaced by a new maturity which pleased her. He'd grown up, she realised, and the growing had been hard.

She smiled inwardly as he stumbled his way through polite conversation, watching him, half-wondering at her prodigal son. Cid would be so pleased, she thought, and felt a pang of disappointment that he wasn't home to see this.

She was on the point of telling him about Cid and the arrangement they were hoping to promote in Esthar when he shook his head and slumped back against the wall, sweating and looking sick. The heat, she thought automatically, travel sickness. She expected him to straighten and laugh it off like he had as a child, but he didn't.

Edea's maternal instincts kicked in and the worry intensified. Half-remembered fragments of SeeD medical training floated through her mind. She flexed her fingers and felt healing magic ripple beneath the skin.

"Seifer?"

He muttered "Matron." indistinctly. Edea wondered if he was on drugs, but he had seemed perfectly normal, or as normal as SeeDs ever got.

She raised her voice. "Is the transport here? Is there anybody else?"

Seifer didn't answer. Edea muttered "Hyne's sake." in exasperation. She reached up and put her hand on his arm, warm under her fingers, and the world slid sideways.

-he was useful, she decided. Violent enough, idealistic enough, loyal enough too. He would do.

Seifer finished his report. She watched the curve of his neck and back as he knelt in front of her, leather gloves dark against the cool white tiles, then rose from her seat. She gathered the long train of her dress in her left hand, handling the fabric carefully to avoid tearing the black silk on the points of her clawed gloves She took much less care with her movements as she reached out to place her right hand on her knight's head. Her fingers curled slowly in his hair, one at a time, and she stroked his head as if petting a dog.

"Stand." she said. "My Knight."

She watched Seifer through odd-shaped pupils as he stood carefully, leaving his gunblade on the floor behind him.

"My Lady?"

Edea watched his eyes flick to her face, and then just as quickly slide away again.

"The SeeD whelps are in my custody?"

"Yes, My Lady."

She liked the title, enjoyed the way the old-fashioned words stuck in the mouth of somebody more used to swearing. "Once you have learned why Balamb Garden opposes me, I shall provide you with dreams again." she told him.

"I am honoured." Seifer said carefully.

"You should be." Edea hissed. "You failed to defeat the brats. Failure is not acceptable." She paused, obviously, making it clear that she expected a reply.

Seifer slid one black-gloved hand up the back of his neck, unconsciously. "My Lady…I..."

Edea waited. There was a kind of delight in watching her knight stumble for the right words. Of course, his failure was unacceptable. But he would learn.

Seifer bowed his head, his eyes focused on the scuffed steel toes of his boots. "I'll find out about Balamb. I swear they'll tell me what you need."

"You will." Edea agreed. She dropped the train of her dress and listened to the silk slither to the ground. "And you will not fail me again."

He flicked his eyes up and then away, daring to look at her. "Of course not." he said, with a flash of his old insolent arrogance.

She smiled indulgently. "You should show more respect." She reached out and laid her hand on Seifer's chest, precisely, at the point where the two arms of the white cross on his vest joined.

Seifer looked away. "Yes, my-"

"Kneel." Edea snarled. The single word was accompanied by a rush of magic powerful enough to leave any human caster staggering.

The Blizzard variant dropped Seifer to the floor. Around his body, the stones cracked and shattered, slicked with a thin layer of ice as the magic earthed itself in the corners of the lavish room. Frost rimed the velvet curtains sparkling white, breath clouded in the air, and a piece of plaster fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Seifer's head.

Edea waited, ignoring it all. She flexed her hand, flicking long shards of ice from her fingertips casually. The chips chimed hollowly as they smashed on the floor. A few minutes later the noise was echoed in cracking ice as her knight dragged himself to his knees.

"Forgive me, my lady."

"Never fail to show me the proper respect again. You'll find that I will not be as tolerant of your subsequent mistakes."

"As you wish, Ultimecia."

"Stand."

Seifer inclined his head, quickly. His boots skidded on the tiles as he attempted to rise to his feet as quickly as possible on a floor rendered treacherous with ice. A thin trickle of frozen blood dribbled from one corner of his mouth, and the broad shoulders of his long coat were white with snow.

Edea reached out to him, allowing a trickle of Cure to flow through her fingers and into Seifer's body. He gasped, his shoulders shaking under her hands in the brutal, magical cold.

"At ease." she told him.

Seifer nodded, his breath smoking. He curled one hand around bruised ribs, balancing carefully on the thin ice.

Edea glanced around theatrically, affecting to notice the damaged room for the first time. She raised one gloved hand negligently and cast a Fire spell, turning back to Seifer as she did so and ignoring the incandescent flames. The ice melted into watery puddles and trails of flame ignited a curtain. A tiny wrinkle appeared between Edea's perfect brows as she frowned, minutely. She flicked her fingers and the curtain collapsed to the ground, billowing clouds of powdery white ash. The fire died, leaving a faint smell of smoke hanging in the suite's still air.

The cut on Seifer's chin re-opened in the warmth. Beads of blood ran down his jawline and trailed onto his coat collar, staining the pale leather. He made no move to wipe the drops away. The sorceress raised her hand and ran a finger down the stain while Seifer stared straight ahead at nothing.

"You think me cruel."

"Fair, my lady."

"Think yourself lucky that I am not Adel." She let the blood dry on her glove as she watched him closely, sharp-eyed. "Look at me."

Seifer raised his chin.

Edea's hand closed on the lapel of his coat. Black silk rustled around her feet as she drew herself up to her full height and pulled him closer. He shut his eyes as Edea licked the blood from the corner of his mouth with tiny flickers of her tongue. She moved in and kissed him, her lips glossy with lacquer. After they had finished she pulled back, heels clicking on the ruined tiles. 'In the morning, go to the desert prison. Learn there why Balamb fights the sorceress."  
"How?"

"Any way you like."

She watched him considering the idea. "And find me a new suite. One with curtains."

"As you wish." Seifer said. "My Lady."

She smiled, slipped the coat from his shoulders and took him to her bed.

The last transition was smoother; Seifer came out of it fighting, and adjusted much more quickly. "What the _fuck_?"

Edea swayed unsteadily a metre away, her natural pallor bleached out to something much more unnatural. She had a dazed look in her eyes. Seifer instinctively reached out his hand to help her and hesitated, the memories still strong in his mind. He settled for touching her arm with the very tips of his fingers, holding away from him as much as supporting her but close enough to catch her if she collapsed.

Nothing happened.

Seifer shifted his grip, thought _to hell with it_, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the shade. Edea's movements were uncoordinated, her eyes blind with grey-violet shadows hollowing the sockets.

He settled her on a chunk of rubble and crouched down beside her in the gritty sand. The sun's warmth on his face was reassuring, strong enough to redden skin. A lizard scuttled through the sagebrush nearby.

Seifer struggled to keep his voice even. "What the hell was that?"

He didn't need to ask if Edea had experienced it too; one look at her face told him that.

Edea covered her face with her hands. Dark hair caught between her fingers. "I don't know."

_Give me a break_, Seifer thought. He almost said it, too, would have if Edea hadn't sounded one step away from crying. He rephrased. "What sort of magic was that? What just happened?"

"It wasn't magic." Edea said. She huddled on the chunk of rock, her sensible sandals scuffed with dirt. Tears glistened in her eyes as she lowered her hands. She wasn't young any more, Seifer thought. It showed in the way that she slumped.

"What _was_ it?"

Edea raised her head and pushed her mass of dark hair back from her face. Muscles moved in her thin arms as she scraped locks back with fast awkward motions and twisted it into a bun that reminded Seifer sharply of Quistis. "It wasn't magic." she repeated. Her voice steadied, lost its crying edge.

Seifer shifted his hand on her back and felt the knobbly spines of her vertebrae sharp beneath the cheap faded cotton. He scuffed a circle in the dust with the toe of his boot. "It's happened to you before." he told her. It wasn't a question.

Edea nodded. "It has."

"Me too. Balamb, mostly. Once with Rinoa. Once in the canteen, with Selphie and that boyfriend of hers." He completed the circle and scuffed it over again. "Irvine."

"I tried to study it." Edea said. "I kept a diary. Events, times, and suchlike. I came to the conclusion that it……that the events were random. I thought I was the only one."

Seifer found the thought that it had happened to Edea often enough for her to keep a record disturbing. "How _often_?"

Edea stared bleakly out at the sea. "Every few weeks."

"I'm thinking it's to do with the wars." Seifer said. "Sorceresses, or something."

Edea raised a hand to brush at her face, wiping tears away with the tips of her fingers.

"That's my guess, too."

"You're coping well."

"I've always coped." Edea said. She seemed to have collected herself, her voice was steady and clipped, her hair only slightly more untidy than usual. She didn't _look_ mad, Seifer reasoned, but he'd been wrong before.

He gave her a sidelong glance. Even with Edea perched on her rock and Seifer seated in the sand, their heads were still on a level. "What does Cid think?"

"He doesn't know."

_And you hide it from him_, Seifer thought. "I thought everything was going too well. Quistis said you were all fucked up. Didn't believe her, really."

Edea smiled at him, a brilliant grin which wiped all the shadows from her face. "You met Quistis?"

Seifer shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah."

"I know she used to be your teacher. I hope that you two got along."

"Uh. Yeah. We did." Seifer said. "Pretty well."

"That's good."

"Yeah. She was..I mean, it was."

Edea didn't notice the slip. She brushed once more at her face and got up slowly, smoothing her skirt as she stood. Her face looked weary. "I find it too hot out here in the middle of the day. Let me invite you to the tower. We have tea."

Seifer followed her, dusting sand from the ass of his jeans with one hand. "Sure." he said neutrally. The last thing he wanted was to be cooped up in a small room, to be stuffed with biscuits and forced to make conversation. He found it awkward enough out on the beach. But whatever Edea wanted, -at least for the moment- he'd give her. She was damaged enough.

Edea gave him another of her worried smiles. She stepped over some rubble and followed a small but well-worn track across the ruined site to the lighthouse. The grass was worn from frequent use and frayed through to sand in places. As they drew closer to the lighthouse it gave way to smooth grey shingle which was replaced by real stone paving a few metres away from the lighthouse steps. The steps rose in a gentle curve to the lighthouse door, raised above the reach of the highest winter storms. The door swung open easily at Edea's touch. She walked into the building and Seifer followed, wondering what the hell he was getting himself in to.

He stumbled over the first step because it was about six inches lower than he remembered. The lighthouse had been out of bounds for most of the time when they'd lived at the orphanage, and every visit had had a purpose, usually maintenance of the light. The building's off-limits status had just made sneaking in more exciting.

It looked like things had changed.

Edea climbed easily up the whitewashed staircase, her long skirt rippling against the walls. Seifer followed behind her. The stairs were a fraction too tall for him to take two at a time, but too low to match his stride. It made walking in the confined space difficult. His head cracked on the ceiling and he swore, quietly. Edea affected not to hear.

They had climbed enough stairs to make his legs ache before they reached the suite of rooms at the top of the lighthouse. Seifer memories led him to expect a half-derelict ruin.

In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. The room was small but cheerful, homely in a way that SeeD quarters never were. The furniture was handmade instead of standard issue, and there was enough useless ornamental crap around the place to make it feel slightly less cell-like than the SeeD dorms.

Edea clattered around cheerfully, fetching mugs from the cupboard, milk from a tiny refrigerator, tea-leaves from a variety of different coloured tins. Seifer stood uncomfortably next to the door.

"Esthar Grey? Lemon? Dollet blend?"

"Uh, that last one." Seifer muttered. He looked around for something to do, anything to fill the space. There was a pile of dirty dishes stacked next to the sink. He dumped them into the bowl with a clatter and washed up badly, using cold water and no washing up liquid.

"You going to rebuild?" he asked her after a while.

"Eventually."

"What happened to this place anyway? Seems kind of wrecked for just a few years."

Edea shook her head. "Storms happen." She spooned tea into a pot. "Almost ready."

It seemed kind of dumb for Seifer to ask her if the storm thing was a metaphor, so he didn't. The tea, when it came, was weak and milky and served in chipped mugs that Seifer recognised from his childhood. Salvage, he realised. It came with biscuits, and paper napkins.

"Suppose I was lucky you didn't throw me out on my ass." he said.

Edea gave him an odd look. "I would never do that." She sipped at her own tea.

"It's just strange, you know." Seifer said. "You don't deserve this. You fucking helped them kill Ultimecia. They should be treating you like a hero, not locking you up here alone."

"The move was my own choice." Edea said calmly. "It's the best place for me."

"Those dreams? You're hardly a danger."

"Maybe I am. Nobody knows, yet."

Seifer looked around the room, gaze flicking from the whitewashed walls to the rose-patterned curtains to the fishing floats hanging from the ceiling. Hyperion rested beside his seat on the bare wooden floorboards, as out of place as a piranha in a nest full of puppies. "What happened, is _that_ normal? For you?"

I don't know." Edea said. "Nobody knows. Sorceresses don't get better, Seifer. Mostly, they die." She smiled placidly at him, and her calm acceptance made Seifer's skin crawl.

"You're not a sorceress any more."

Edea smiled and shook her head.

He shifted his weight in the chair and wood creaked under his feet. "So you're going to just stay here for ever?"

Edea set her rose-patterned china mug down on the table. She clasped both hands under her chin, the gesture making her look much younger. "I don't know."

"No-one's keeping you here." Seifer pointed out. "You could just leave. Travel somewhere. Somewhere where nobody cares about sorceresses." It was what he would have done once, what he had done, in fact. Not something, maybe, that he could recommend.

"I'd have to go a long way for that." Her voice was half resigned, half humorous.

Seifer battled against her fatalism. "You could _try_."

Edea settled back in her chair, her posture straight. "Did that work for you?"

Seifer frowned and put his own mug down unfinished. "I didn't tell you I'd been travelling."

She gave him a look that made him feel about five again, five and caught doing something forbidden. "You didn't have to."

"I shouldn't have gone. Screwed up whenever I had the chance. Guess the best thing would have been to come right back, but I didn't. Couldn't face it. Coward, huh?"

"You don't think that I'm brave." Edea said bluntly. "Hiding in Centra-"

"That's different." Seifer said indignantly. "You're different."

"How?"

"Don't know." Seifer said. He glanced down at the blade of sleek black metal lying on the floor among Edea's rugs and footstools. "But you are. You've killed less people, for a start."

He'd forgotten all about Zell, forgotten about half the world, to be completely truthful, and didn't expect it when their conversation was interrupted by the sound of running feet pounding up the narrow staircase to Edea's eyrie. Seconds later the door slammed back so hard it reverberated on its hinges.

"Hey!" Zell said enthusiastically. "I finished unloading. Edea, it's nice to see you-" His voice trailed off, and returned in a distinctly unenthusiastic tone. "Oh. Seifer. There you are."

"Don't sound too pleased." Seifer said. "It might kill you."

Zell looked surprised. His hands were streaked with rust and grime from the cargo containers, the dirt inexpertly rinsed from his skin in patches. "I wasn't-"

"In fact, I hope it does."

Zell paused in the doorway. "You all right?"

"Fuck off, Dincht." Seifer told him. He drained the last of his tea, cooled and unpleasant, and longed for coffee.

"There's no need to use that language." Edea said.

Seifer rolled his eyes at Zell and they shared a second of private amusement. "I'm fine, Zell." he said, sardonically, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Thanks."

Edea frowned. "I didn't bring you up to use language like that."

"Sorry."

Zell frowned. He came in and closed the door behind him, rubbing ineffectually at the mark the heavy brass handle had left on the whitewashed walls. "You look strange."

Edea _did_ look tired, Seifer noted, something tense and strained around her eyes.

"Zell, thank you. I am fine."

Zell looked at Edea and back at Seifer. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's _fine_." Seifer snapped at him. He would rather have offered himself to Quistis's class of retards for knife-throwing practice than tell Dincht exactly what had gone on.

Zell shrugged.

Edea glanced over at Seifer. It was a worried glance, and one that said, clearly, _Why_ _are you behaving like this?_

Seifer looked out of the window, avoiding her eyes, and fought a sudden impulse to leave. What was the use staying? He certainly wasn't going to tell her that he felt vulnerable in front of Zell. That was one last humiliation he could do without. He'd done enough soul-baring for one day.

"It's getting a bit crowded in here….. I'm gonna go down to the beach for a while." He glanced at Zell. "You okay with that? Guess you might want to fill Matron in with the news. Doesn't matter if I'm not around for a bit, right?"

Zell's expression was distinctly unenthusiastic, as if he didn't want Seifer wandering off by himself but could think of no reason not to let him go. "I guess."

The ex-knight gave Edea a concerned glance. "Will you be all right?"

"'Course." Zell answered, absently. He took a chair opposite Edea and sprawled out in it, sweating and combing his hair back with one hand.

"I wasn't asking _you_, Dincht"

Edea smiled; a touch too brightly to be completely sincere. "Yes. Thank you, Seifer. I'll be fine." A covert glance passed between them as he left, a pact, maybe, not to speak of anything.

Seifer left, closing the door behind him. He paused in the shadow of the doorway for a second before plunging out into the desert sun and thought of Edea, upstairs. He wasn't really worried about her wellbeing; Zell would take care of her, but he still felt like it should be him. It was as if he'd stopped to take a breath and the old protective instincts had slammed into him like a railroad truck. He felt _responsible_.

Seifer sighed and struck out along the beach.

Zell leaned out of the window above him. "Don't go far."

Seifer hadn't meant to be more than a few minutes, but typically, Zell's concern made him want to disappear for a few days and not come back.

"Yeah, yeah." he shouted back.

Zell shrugged, the subtle movement almost invisible from thirty feet up, and disappeared.

Seifer turned his back on the lighthouse and walked along the beach in the foam between the waves and the wet sand. The surf smelt sharp and unpleasant in a way that it hadn't back when he'd been a kid. Residue from the Estharian chemical industries, he guessed, or just a bad memory.

When the lighthouse was all but out of sight behind him he walked inland fifty metres and sat down in the natural hollow where the beach joined the dunes, risking a glance inland in case of monsters. There was nothing behind the dunes but sky, no high land beyond them like Balamb's mountain range or the northern forests, just flat low desert as far as you could see.

Seifer settled in the sand with Hyperion at his side, a slim black shadow. He narrowed his eyes against the sun, and folded his arms on his knees. The beach was deserted, and very quiet.

Seifer distrusted the silence. After three weeks spent at Garden, it seemed strange to be alone, and even stranger to be alone in a place that he associated so strongly with other people. He concentrated on not thinking about Edea, something at which he was well practiced, and succeeded. It was a few minutes before he realised he'd fallen into the trap of thinking about Quistis instead.

It was the beach, he thought. The last time he'd visited a beach it had been in Trabia, in tourist season, with Quistis, back when he'd still been surprised to find her better company than he'd been expecting.

Seifer had to admit that he missed the company.

_I miss that,_ he told her, silently. _I miss you_.

Quistis, of course, being several hundred miles away, didn't say anything.

Seifer stared out to sea, picking chips of leather from the peeling steel toes of his boots. He shoved both hands through his hair, rubbed one hand along his jawline and wished that he had shaved. His eyes felt sandy, more from lack of sleep than anything else. And after that vision, or memory, or dream, or whatever it had been, he wasn't honestly sure whether he would feel like sleeping ever again.

"That wasn't real." he told the sky, sweating in the unaccustomed heat.

He felt slightly indignant at Edea's state. _Why hasn't someone else done something? _he thought, half-seriously. _They sorted out most of my mistakes, (though they're still rebuilding Trabia, guess that took some time) Why didn't they manage this one?_

He picked up Hyperion and used the tip of the razor-sharp blade to trim his fingernails. The metal caught the sun and he scowled, angling it away from his eyes.

_They don't teach you this shit in Garden. They don't teach you this stuff anywhere. Nobody tells you how to sort this kind of stuff out. Nobody tells you how to act and I can't bully or fight or charm my way out of this one._

_It'd be nice, though._

Should he offer to stay here, with Edea? Take her back to Garden? Leave her as she was?

_Ah, fuck it._

He would have felt better if there had been any guarantee that whatever loose wiring himself and Edea shared in their brain could be fixed. Instead, he just hit himself on the side of the head and reached for a cigarette, playing with ground down pieces of bottleglass in the sand, blue and green and white.

_Gods._ _I hate fucking magic._

The cigarette was almost finished by the time Seifer thought to return. He refused to think about Edea, or Quistis, but there was no getting over the fact that sooner or later, he'd have to go back.

The desert was looking more attractive by the second. As a suicide option, Seifer had decided that the sea would be a better bet, kill you faster. There were things in the sea, monsters and riptides and deadly currents, undertows and poisonous fish. The desert just had a whole lot of nothing. Nothing, and monsters.

Seifer stubbed out his cigarette in the sand and looked down the beach one last time.

The lighthouse jutted out from the sand like a model toy on his left and there was nothing to his right but blank, flat, featureless and uninteresting sand-

Something moved in the distance.

Seifer squinted and wondered if he had somehow become disorientated. He blinked at the slowly moving shape in between the sand dunes to his right.

_Too small to be the transport._ _Too flat to be Zell. _

_Huh. Wonder what that is?_

Intrigued, Seifer collected Hyperion from the sand, stood up and wandered closer.

He didn't have to hurry. It took him ten minutes to get close to the shape, and in that time the monster moved about a metre.

It turned out to be a large Adamantoise, one of the carnivorous mutated turtles common to the Centra beaches. Waist-high at its topmost point, the turtle easily tipped the scales at twice Seifer's weight. Its flippers left deep grooves in the damp sand behind it. Its scales, mottled with patterns of grayish-green and turquoise blue, sparkled with moisture under the hot sun.

Seifer slung his sword over his shoulder and tried to kid himself that the monster really could make it to the top of the lighthouse tower, given the chance. The truth was that he just wanted to kill something, and the Adamantoise was the nearest target. It was a threat, but it wasn't very dangerous one.

He gave up justifying himself and walked down to where the turtle scrabbled at the sand. It was so focused on returning to the water that it didn't swivel its head to look at him until he was almost touching it. The skin of its neck was wrinkled, studded with thick rounded scales the size of Seifer's hand, and the pupils of its eyes were clouded and opaque.

Seifer remembered the dusty voice of one of his old lecturers. _Adamantoises_ _rarely leave the water, _he was saying. _They do so for two reasons; to cache treasure, and to mate. _

_Treasure._ Seifer thought. There didn't seem to be any other adamantoises around, and although his turtle biology was shaky he was pretty sure there had to be at least two involved to mate.

He left the monster where it was, following its tracks back up the beach. A shallow hollow was scooped out in the sand a few metres from the high-tide line. The nest contained a clutch of translucent globules about the size of two clenched fists.

Seifer knelt down in the sand and examined each egg more closely. He slid a hand under one and picked it up. The shell was tough, leathery and lucent. The embryo inside looked half-formed, like a sucked jelly baby.

On his sea-side, the Adamatoise swivelled its head back over its shell and stared at him with baleful eyes.

Seifer replaced the egg in the shallow nest and counted the clutch. There were ten in all, ten perfectly formed tiny Adamantoises. Each one, when fully grown, would hold enough power in their jaws to bite a man in half.

_So, not treasure. Huh. Monster extermination the easy way, get 'em when they're young._

Seifer reversed the blade of Hyperion and used its tip to puncture each egg. The miniature monsters inside each egg spilled out onto the nest in a gush of yellow fluid which soaked quickly into the sand. The whole job, including kicking sand over the remains, took him about twenty seconds. Job done.

Later Seifer would blame his lack of vigilance on the disappointment of not finding the expected treasure. He had forgotten about the adult Adamantoise, forgotten that the turtles could move fast when they needed to. And this one had obviously decided that it needed to.

Seifer was greeted by an open maw full of razor-sharp teeth. He dodged as the monster lurched forwards. It missed him and swung around in a tight circle for another pass, spraying sand, incredibly fast. One flipper scythed though the air at waist height. Seifer saw it coming. He jumped out of the way and used his momentum to bring Hyperion around in an arc that bit deeply between the large scales on the Adamatoise's neck. The blade sank deeply in and withdrew, slick with watery chelonian blood. The turtle snarled, rearing its head back and Seifer hacked at it viciously with the sword. Its flippers scrabbled at the sand, the sharp spikes on their edges digging in to gain purchase. He cut at its tail and the Adamantoise whirled and went for him, open-mouthed.

Seifer jumped aside. The turtle missed again, but the blow he'd aimed for the monster's vulnerable tail skidded from its adamantine shell with a metallic screech, leaving a white scar. Sparks flew where the metal touched the monster's carapace. There was a reason, Seifer thought grimly, why the mechanics forged swords out of the turtle's adamantine exoskeletons. They were tough. Hyperion's blade would never crack the turtle's shell. He'd wear his arms out first.

He aimed for the monster's right eye, but a sideswipe from a clawed flipper knocked the blade aside.

He tried to remember the appropriate battle techniques for bringing down the giant turtles. A well-placed Meltdown would have had the monster crawling, but he had no magic, so he'd just have to do the best he could or give up.

He drew a Protect spell from the monster and cast it on himself. The magical shield made him feel a little better, but he had never put his trust in magic, and he wasn't about to start now. The Adamantoise hissed like a snake and snapped at his legs, looking puzzled as it encountered the Protect.

"Stop fighting me, asshole." Seifer told it. "I'm much better at this than you."

The Adamantoise didn't appear to be listening to him. It snaked its neck around and snapped at him again. Seifer parried the horny beak with the flat of his blade and drew back slightly, considering tactics. He was about to dodge behind the monster to aim a flurry of blows at its stubby tail when the air around the Adamantoise took on a strange glow. If there had been any cover, Seifer would have dived for it. As it was he dodged again and the spell thudded into the beach, where it fused the sand into fantastical shapes of glass.

The turtle paused to recover, giving Seifer time to carry out his plan. He had time for a few well-aimed blows at the tail before the Adamantoise circled again, but what he'd forgotten as that the monster's tail was armoured as well. The sword glanced off its scales, even with all of Seifer's weight and several of his most fervent prayers behind it. The fight had moved down the beach, closer to the water, but the animal had lost all interest in escaping. It attacked, shoving Seifer into knee-high water that poured into his boots and soaked chilly through his jeans.

Seifer parried the blow, slid the blade of his sword off the monster's beak and scored a deep gash that ran underneath its shell. He waited for it to cough blood and attempt to escape or die, but the Adamantoise did none of those things.

He hardly noticed when the air around the monster began to glow, the spray from the waves masking the spell effectively. By the time he'd worked out that the animal was spellcasting, it was too late for anything but the most desperate of attacks. Seifer went for it, pushing deeper into the water.

The turtle, floating now, raised its head to glare at him as his sword glanced from its shell.. It was the most malevolent look he'd ever received from an animal.

_It's only gone and fucking healed itself..._ he thought, realised that it hadn't, and then there was no more time to think. He turned away as the spell hit him.

The sea roared in his ears. He could see nothing at all, couldn't hear the animal moving behind the noise of the sea, his own heart beating and behind that, one of his old lecturers saying '_Watch out for the Adamantoises.'_

'_Why?'_

'_They all cast Blind, and they all know when to use it at the worse time in a battle.'_

_Thanks a lot, useless dead guy, _Seifer thought. Something slammed into him and he went down in a swirl of surf and bubbles, Hyperion held in a deathgrip. He tasted salt water and his breath escaped in a cloud of bubbles. There was a pain in his leg, dull and almost unimportant; he had more pressing concerns such as where the monster was, and where he was, and which way was up…

_No problem, _he thought. _If I stay here long enough, I'm bound to float to the top…._

Something scored across his shoulders. Seifer guessed it for a clawed flipper He flailed uselessly upwards, the blade of Hyperion moving slowly with the pressure of the water, and something else sharp knocked him across the head. Something else caught on his T-shirt. Seifer's head snapped back as he was dragged deeper, each movement of the animal's body shaking him as it fought. He would have been shredded if it wasn't for the Protect spell, but that wouldn't stop him drowning. His back hit soft sand and he tasted grit in his mouth, tried to breathe and swallowed more water. Conscious thought disappeared, replaced by pure instinct.

_Its legs are here, and its head's here, so its belly must be…. _

Seifer struck upwards. There was resistance, and then the blade sank deeply in. The taste of seawater in his mouth changed to something fishy and vile. He braced himself against the sand and ripped the blade towards where he thought its head must be, using his free hand to lean pressure on the blade. The blade lodged in something solid and the animal convulsed above him, flailing. Something sharp caught him across the face. Seifer punched upwards with his free hand, forgot all the techniques Zell had ever taught him and just hit it. One of his knuckles popped, a white-hot flare of pain which blacked out all sensation for a second, including that of drowning. It was quite pleasant.

The wild movements of the monster above him slowed. Seifer dragged his sword free from its body and tried to work out where to hit next. Salt stung at his eyes, lungs bursting as he inhaled against nothing and choked. There was a deep low-pitched bellow which rang in his ears. The turtle floated limply above him, barely visible through clouds of milky chelonian blood and kicked-up sand.

Seifer felt relief, closely followed by suffocation. He fought his way to the surface, too exhausted to use any recognisable swimming stroke.

He surfaced beside the motionless shell of the turtle and gasped for air, standing easily and swearing as he noticed that the water was no more than waist-high. He'd nearly drowned in less than three feet of water.

_Fucking turtle._

Seifer grinned. He ran a hand through his hair, dribbling water down his back, and shook his head. Drops of water scattered into the waist-high waves. He scooped handfuls of seawater up to douse his T-shirt. Sand from the ocean floor scoured the bloodstains from his hands. The current carried the dead turtle very slowly out to sea, its shell tilting. The slick of shed scales and oily blood lasted for a little while longer before the waves scattered it.

When the turtle's blood had been reduced to a smeared green stain on the fabric of his T-shirt he gave up on cleaning and flopped backwards into the surf, arms outstretched. The swell of the ocean buoyed him up, his body skewed to the right by the weight of Hyperion. The sky was incredibly blue.

Seifer closed his eyes.

Half-underwater, he almost missed the noise of a transport skimming across the bay to his right.

Seifer's first thought was that Zell better not have left him on Centra. It was one thing if he decided to stay, quite another if Zell just up and marooned him. He got his feet under him and stood up in the shallow water, squinting in the sun.

The boat was white, clean and far too aerodynamic for any of Garden's utilitarian vehicles. It was heading towards the lighthouse, and it didn't belong to Balamb.

Seifer frowned. He felt uneasy for no good reason that he could place. It bothered him enough for him to wade out of the ocean and stand on the beach shading his eyes as he followed the motorboat's progress across the bay. It rounded the cape and disappeared.

_Edea._

_Shit. _

Seifer slung Hyperion over his back and began to run up the beach. Shells crunched under his boots. The lighthouse looked tiny in the distance. It took him longer than he had hoped to run back, stumbling in the soft sand, his damp clothes heavy. The door to the lighthouse was open and Seifer hesitated for a minute, wondering whether he should go up. The wind brought the sound of voices to his ears and he headed down the shallow slope, towards the ruins.

There was a sleek white boat moored next to the squat Balamb transport in the bay.

Estharian, Seifer thought, as he dodged in between walls, and lost sight of the craft.

There were three people standing among the ruins and all three paused for a second as Seifer bore down on them. He wasn't surprised. The sudden appearance of an armed man always seemed to reorganise everyone's plans.

His eyes went instantly to Edea. She seemed okay, which was something Seifer was glad about. He was slightly less relieved that Zell appeared unharmed. The other one….

The third man was dressed eccentrically in a mix of styles which ranged from 'eastern philosopher' to 'insane clown'. He was short, no taller than Seifer's chest, and he had compensated for this by adding a huge and archaic ruff to his outfit that, Seifer thought, must make it very difficult to fit through doors. He didn't look Estharian, didn't look anything in particular except crazy, but the way Zell had positioned himself between Edea and the stranger rang a few alarm bells in Seifer's mind. He had some respect for Zell's instincts, when they weren't telling the fighter to punch him.

Seifer slid to a halt, feet moving automatically into attack position. "Who the hell are you?"

Zell looked puzzled. "What happened to you?"

"Monster trouble." Seifer told him. He glanced down at his wet clothes. "Nothing much. What's going on?"

"It's Odine." Zell said, like that should explain everything.

Seifer scowled. "O-who?" He glanced at Edea and realised that she was crying. Tears ran down her face and soaked into the neck of her cotton dress, each one magnifying Seifer's sudden urge to hit the stranger in the face. He moved to Zell's side, cutting Edea off from the visitor.

"Odine." Zell said, exasperated. "The scientist."

Seifer blinked, recognising the name. "You wrote all those sorceress papers?"

The little man's face split into an instant grin. He held himself with the determined confidence of a non-combatant and didn't appear at all alarmed by Seifer's threatening posture. "You have read my work?"

Seifer shrugged. "Skimmed a bit. It didn't make much sense. "

Odine gave him the bright wondering smile of a man watching a trained Chocobo spell out words; the novelty wasn't in the bird doing it well, it was that it did it at all. "That does not surprise me. But first, let me introduce myself. I am ze Doctor Odine."

"So I heard." Seifer was determined to be unimpressed.

"And you are?"

"Zell Dincht." Zell said, reluctantly. "And Seifer Almasy. SeeDs from Balamb." His grimy fair skin was already reddened by the hot sun; he reached up to scratch absently at his peeling nose and closed both hands back into fists.

Odine looked suddenly elated. "But this iz perfect!"

Zell frowned. He slid an arm around Edea's shoulders. "It is?"

"Your name iz Seifer?"

Seifer sighted along the blade. "Yeah." He wondered for a second or so if the little man might have some kind of vendetta against him, and shrugged it off. He looked way too happy, and not intimidated at all.

The small man wiped sweat from his bald head with the wide cuffs of his overall. He looked from Seifer to Edea and back to Seifer again. "But you're Edea's knight!"

Seifer frowned, trying to work out where he was heading. "I was."

The scientist's eyes gleamed like a child with a new toy. "Then this iz a most exciting research opportunity for me!"

"Somehow," Zell muttered "I doubt that."

"Edea will have told you about the work zat she does with me?"

Zell frowned. "Strangely enough, no. What work?"

Seifer flicked the point of Hyperion towards the little man, who regarded it with detached interest. "She works with you?"

Odine nodded vigorously. Edea's gaze slid down to her shoes. She seemed more disturbed than when Seifer had left her in the tower, and he thought, _right, that's it. I'm never leaving Dincht in charge of anything again…at least, not anything important. _He turned to Zell. "Who is this guy? Can we trust him?"

"He does brain science." Zell said. Sun glinted from the heavy metal studs on the knuckles of his fighting gloves. "And no."

"It iz not brain science." Odine said indignantly. "I am ze greatest authority on neuroscience and ze sorceresses zat has ever existed." He rummaged in the pockets of his stained white coat. "I have written many important papers..published in many journals. 'Brain science', indeed!"

"It is the way I see it." Zell said He looked thoughtful "You know, this explains a lot. Selphie told me that Quistis said she found a test card once. Rorschach blotting, that kind of thing."

"It does?" Seifer said, puzzled. He remembered Quistis saying that Edea had never really recovered from the wars.

_-Edea never returned for the autumn term. And she's lived in Centra ever since. She's almost normal, some days. But whenever Cid's away, she gets worse. It's as if she's on the far side of the moon, for all we can do for her_……

Zell scowled. Seifer was surprised by how hostile he seemed towards Odine, but Zell was never so fierce as in defence of his friends. "Yeah. I don't like the sound of this." He glared at Odine, taking in every detail of the scientist's enormous ruff, stained white coat and purple jumpsuit. "Freak."

"I have forced your Matron to do nothing!" Odine said indignantly. "She iz my willing experimental subject. And I take exception to your comments about my appearance. This iz national dress!"

"Yeah, in the country of the insane." Seifer told him.

"He's trying to help me." Edea said quickly.

"Like _hell_."

Edea looked pale but composed. "I invited Odine to Centra. That is the reason that he is here. I sought the doctor's help. I want to be free of the sorceresses' control."

Seifer remembered Edea telling him that she'd tried to study her visions. "I don't think it's worked."

"I thought zat it would be easy." Odine said sulkily. "The sorceress has been exorcised, yet there iz still some residual activity left in ze brain. Memories. Echoes. I have been working with Mrs Kramer for some time researching this most interesting problem."

"You signed up for this?"

Edea sighed. "I volunteered. Some time ago." She rubbed at the corner of her eyes flicking drops of moisture away with the tips of her fingers.

"I have come to collect her." Odine said. "I have been trying to persuade Mrs Kramer to visit Esthar for some time."

Seifer glanced around, marking the position of the pale ship in the bay. It hadn't moved. "Why?"

"She iz helping me with my research like I told you!" The scientist sweated and pulled at his ruff. "Maybe I could persuade you to come with me. This iz a marvellous opportunity!"

Zell rolled back onto the balls of his feet, his shabby trainers scuffing in the gritty dust. The scrawled black tattoo on his face contrasted sharply with his sunburn. "She's not going."

"She is." Odine contradicted him. "She agreed to help me in my study of ze sorceresses."

Seifer turned to Edea. She looked small and fragile against the towering ruins. "Does he help?"

Edea shook her head. "It doesn't matter. It's my duty to go. Odine's research may help some other people." Her dark hair was escaping from its twisted bun in long, ruler-straight locks.

Seifer snorted. "Hyne, you've got to stop with this altruistic stuff. Don't go. You don't have to travel all the way to Esthar to sort your head out."

"She has to come! I have a ship in ze harbour!" Odine said. A cunning expression passed over his face. "It iz a gunship. I have soldiers on board."

Seifer and Zell exchanged glances over the little scientist's head.

"Shit, not _soldiers_.."Zell said, sarcastically.

Seifer grinned. "You're improving, Dincht. Hey, I've got an idea. What if the ship didn't get back to Esthar at all?"

Odine was completely oblivious to the implied threat. His brow furrowed, beaded with sweat. "Pardon? We cannot all stay here. There iz no room."

Zell was a little quicker on the uptake. "You can't do that!"

"Don't see why not." Seifer shrugged. His drying clothes pulled at him. "It's a long way. Some big monsters in that sea."

"Technically, it iz an ocean." Odine said happily.

Edea glanced at Seifer, then at Zell, frowning. "No." she told them both.

Zell sighed. "Yeah, she's right. We can't do it."

Odine drew a tissue from one pocket and mopped at his forehead again. "Do what?"

"Why not?" Seifer asked him.

"Because..because we're SeeDs. We're the good guys. You can't just go getting rid of people like that! Anyway, where would we put them?"

"See, now you're taking it seriously."

"What are you talking about?" Odine asked them.

Seifer waved one hand, the one not holding Hyperion. "Nothing."

Odine produced a tiny phone from one pocket. It was sleek and ovoid, like a very futuristic egg. His sweaty fingertips left smeary prints on its pristine chrome surface. "This iz ridiculous. I will radio the ship now and tell them zat we are coming."

Seifer flicked the hammer of the gunblade back. "Don't think the message would get through."

"You know how unreliable the communications are these days." Zell said, happily.

Edea gave him a warning glance. "Stop it. He is only trying to help me."

Seifer glared at Odine. "You don't seem to have done much so far."

The little scientist flicked the phone open. He began to pull a long collapsible aerial from a tiny recess in its side. "I am helping Edea control the symptoms. Severe psychological disturbance is inevitable in her situation. It seems to me to be a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder with certain interesting modifications, possibly due to hippocampal damage. More research is vital."

It took Seifer a second or two to translate. "So you know what it is, great. Can you help her?"

Odine's hands paused for a second. "I didn't say help. I _study_. I'm a scientist, not a doctor."

"Post-traumatic stress?" Zell said. "That's nothing. SeeD doctors can deal with that shit. We've got _psychiatrists_." he said proudly.

Odine raised his eyebrows and stared pointedly at Seifer's gun. "SeeDs only know one way to deal with sorceresses."

Zell went red and began to stammer. "Hey, hang on a minute.."

"She's not going." Seifer said bluntly.

Odine's expression turned cunning. "No? Maybe you will come instead, yes? This ship iz going back to Esthar in five minutes. I am taking one passenger. Your choice." He had finished fixing the phone aerial and held one finger poised over the buttons.

Seifer swapped the gunblade into his left hand. He was just about to grab the phone from the scientist and stamp it into the beach when he thought, _why not_. He could do with escaping from Garden for a while, and if Edea required proof that Odine's science wasn't working to send her back to Garden, then he would only be too happy to prove it. He'd never been to Esthar. How bad could it be? "Why not?"

Odine paused. "You will come?"

"Maybe." Seifer said. "As long as you promise to leave Edea alone."

"You're _mental_." Zell told him.

Seifer shrugged and lowered the gunblade. "Tell me something I don't know. I've tried everything else to sort my fucking head out, drinking, sex, violence, travel. I might as well try therapy."

"That's very logical." Zell said, in a tone of voice that meant _it's not at all._

Seifer shrugged again. Privately he thought that it made some sense. You never knew, Esthar's medical miracles might work, but he doubted it. Odine hadn't fixed Edea. He'd just used her.

"Perfect!" Odine said happily.

"I didn't say yes." Seifer warned him. "I said maybe."

Odine waved his hand. He looked up at Seifer expectantly, holding the phone nearly at arm's length to avoid it getting tangled in his ruff. "You are a soldier, yes? You do vat your commander tells you?"

"Like hell." Seifer muttered. "Leonhart's not my commander."

Behind him, Zell stifled a snigger. "I've got the number, if you want it." he offered.

Odine nodded, completely oblivious to any subtext. "I will call him. Give me the number."

Zell reeled off a list of digits. He watched carefully as Odine began to punch the numbers into his phone and grinned conspiratorially at Seifer. "That's Squall's private phone. He's going to be pissed."

Odine grunted. "I vill persuade Squall Leonhart. I am developing a few instruments for Balamb and without direct input from the SeeDs they may well be inexplicably delayed. Delayed, yes. I will convince him. Easily." He lifted the phone to his ear and walked a few steps into the shadow of a masonry pillar. "Excuse me. This should not take long."

They waited in silence in the sun for a few minutes, listening to Odine's confident voice slowly turn less so. Zell wiped dust from the toes of his trainers onto the calves of his bare legs. Seifer sat down in the sand with the blade of Hyperion balanced on his knees. He extracted a tiny rag from the hilt and began to clean the salt-stained blade. It took some time, and he still hadn't finished when Odine came out from behind the pillar and held the phone out to him. "He wants to talk to you."

Seifer smirked. He held the phone up to his ear, looked at it when no sound came out, and flipped it around.

Squall's voice was guarded. "You sure you can deal with this?"

Seifer turned his back on the little scientist and wandered round a chunk of masonry towards the sea. "Honestly? No."

"It's a difficult position."

Seifer could almost imagine Squall sitting at his desk in the sunshine, surrounded by piles of paperwork. He sounded exasperated. "That's diplomatic talk. Means you want me to go, but you can't make me."

"Whatever, Almasy." Squall said. "Are you going, or not?"

"What about the instruments Odine's making for you?"

"It's up to you." Squall said noncommittally. Seifer guessed that Odine's attempt at blackmail had got precisely nowhere. "How's it been going?"

"Edea's taking it pretty well. Fuck, better than I would. Odine's been screwing with her. She's scared of him. Did you know he's been visiting the whole time?"

"He told me."

"Think I should go. It'll keep him out of the way for a while."

"You're walking into this of your own free will." Squall warned him.

"Yeah." Seifer said. "I know."

"Esthar's neutral territory, so you shouldn't get any problems. You'll be under Garden's protection. Just keep a lookout, and for Hyne's sake don't talk to any journalists without calling Xu first."

Seifer imagined that call. _Xu,_he would say, _can I talk to these-_ and Xu wouldn't even have to hear the rest before telling him _No._

He sniggered. "Got that."

"Estharian law's pretty strict, so make sure you don't piss anyone off. Odine'll help. I've got a feeling he'll get you out as most things as long as you go along with his tests. Don't push it, though. I mean that. And don't just go through with everything

Odine says. Think about it yourself. I can't say it any clearer than that."

"I can go to Esthar?"

"If you want to." Squall's voice indicated that nobody in their right mind would even consider it.

"You want me to say hey to your dad?"

"No." You could have chopped Squall's voice into chunks and used it to cool drinks.

"What, you don't get on?"

Squall ignored him. "Keep in touch while you're there. I'll arrange some kind of communication relay."

Seifer swung back to check on Edea. She stood with her hands by her sides, watching him. "Gonna miss me?"

"No."

"Harsh."

"Tell Edea I'll call her later." Squall said. "Keep your eyes open." His voice faded, replaced by static.

Seifer lowered the phone. It fit neatly into his palm, sleek and silver in a way which reminded him of his mousetrap, back before he started the modifications. Useful.

"He says yes." he shouted over.

Odine's expression brightened. He stumbled across the ruins to take the phone from Seifer and would have shaken his hand if it hadn't been holding a rather large sword. "Perfect. I vill go and radio the news to Esthar."

"Do I need to bring anything?" Seifer asked him. He intended to bring his bag from the SeeD transport anyway, if only to have somewhere to hide Hyperion.

"You don't need luggage." Odine said happily. "Just come as you are."

Seifer looked at the white craft in the bay, back at Edea's face, which was nearly the same colour, and had a familiar feeling of _oh fuck, I just did what?_

Zell sidled over, pulling at the Velcro fasteners on his gloves. He ripped them open with his teeth, pulled the gloves off with difficulty and stuffed them into a pocket of his baggy shorts. "You don't have to go with him." he said, and wiped his hands down his legs.

"Shut up, Dincht." Seifer said, absently. "I'm thinking." He could have said _I'm trying to decide whether or not I just made a huge mistake _but decided that this was not something Zell needed to know.

"Odine's weird. He studied Rinoa for a while. Squall's officially banned him from the Balamb site, did you know that?"

"Yeah." Seifer said, although he hadn't. He lowered Hyperion and slumped back against one of the still-standing walls, the tip of the sword trailing in the dust. "I don't have to go. But what do you think I came here for? My goddamn health or something? I came to sort her out. And I'm not going back to Balamb til I do."

"You might be gone a while."

"Don't try to act worried. You can't wait."

"True." Zell said reflectively. He looked over at Edea, who hadn't moved. "You should go talk to her."

Seifer sighed. "Yeah, in a minute. Don't worry."

"I wasn't."

"I'll find out what Odine's researching, prove to her there's nothing seriously wrong, and then she'll come back."

"How?"

"Fuck knows." Seifer said. He watched the little scientist stand on the edge of the beach and wave to the ship. There was a flicker of movement from inside a cabin and a small boat appeared from around the far side of the craft. It was manned by Estharian soldiers wearing insectlike helmets and armour which looked like it had melted onto their bodies, just like Odine had threatened.

He didn't trust the little man at all, of course, but that was good. That way, he had just enough misgivings to keep him on edge. He'd find out what he needed, and if there was one thing Quistis had taught him it was that you studied something you wanted to beat. And he wouldn't learn anything by following his gut instinct and laying into Odine with a sword.

Pity.

Zell followed his line of vision out to the boat in the bay. "Squall was fine with letting you go? I thought he might. Good cannon fodder's not too hard to find."

"Don't worry, Dincht. I'm not after your job."

Zell snorted. "You couldn't do it."

"Like hell. A trained monkey could do your-"

"I'd prefer it." Edea said "if you didn't fight."

Seifer and Zell apologised in unison. It was creepy, Seifer thought, the way that she'd managed to walk up without either of them noticing, but then 'creepy' neatly summed up the way he felt about the whole situation.

Zell grimaced. "I'll leave you to it." He walked off. Seifer hoped that meant he was going to fetch his kit, but he didn't call after him, just in case it put him off. He straightened up, sliding his back up against the rough masonry. Bees buzzed, somewhere nearby. The air smelt of flowers.

Edea leant one hand against the wall for balance and looked up at him with serious eyes. "You shouldn't feel like you have to go because of me." More of her hair had fallen out of her loose bun. It reached her waist, streaked with fine grey strands. The tracks of tears stained her cheeks. "That was silly of me. I did invite him. It was a shock."

"Doesn't matter. I'll be fine." He grinned. "It's Odine you should be worried about."

"Be careful."

"I'll write."

"You won't."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"You're welcome back any time you want. You know that."

"Do now."

There was a long and slightly awkward silence. Seifer would have filled it with promises he had no way of keeping, but he had a feeling Edea knew them all.

He felt responsible. That was what it all came down to.

"Look after yourself." he told her.

Edea nodded, a tight little movement. They were both glad when Zell came running up the hill, taking a different track from Odine. He hurdled a thicket of sagebrush and threw Seifer's duffelbag into his arms, flower petals wedged between the laces of his sneakers.

"Thanks." Seifer said briefly. He dropped the bag to the floor, knelt down beside it, and opened the zipper. "I'm going to have to hide this." The sword fitted neatly into the bag; that, after all, had been the main reason for Seifer choosing it from the Balamb commissary.

"You're not leaving it?" Zell asked curiously.

Seifer zipped the kitbag up. "Nah."

"Have you ever _been _to Esthar?"

"No."

Zell shrugged. Dark patches of sweat and rust stained his T-shirt. "Your funeral.

You sure you don't want me to take anything back for you?"

"No..wait." Seifer dug one of Edea's napkins from his pocket, hunted in the side pockets on his bag for a pencil and scribbled on it briefly before handing the note to Zell. "Give this to Fuujin."

Zell gave the grimy letter a brief glance. "She's gone to Trabia."

"Then mail it or something." Seifer said impatiently.

Zell stuffed the napkin into the back pocket of his shorts. "Nothing you want to give to Quistis?"

Seifer glared at Zell. "No."

Edea looked at him quizzically. "Take care."

Seifer gave Edea an awkward, one-handed hug, something which surprised them both.

"Look after her." he muttered over her shoulder to Zell.

Zell hissed something back, something which Seifer was pretty sure sounded like "We've been looking after her fine for the last two years when you were Hyne knew where."

Seifer stepped back and picked up his bag. "And don't forget to post the letter."

"Would I?"

Seifer rolled his eyes at him and took a last look around. Sunlight flashed off the water. The ruins were white under the bright sun. Edea waved at him, self-consciously. Zell stood protectively behind her.

He got on the boat.

* * *

This rather Seifer-centric chapter is dedicated both to my incredibly creative sister and to the fst livejournal community for providing the many, many soundtrack songs I downloaded while writing this chapter. I recommend all the Lady Sisyphus and Mr Moonpants ones, especially the Katamari Damacy, Firefly and FLCL ones. They're both ex-Technomancers, which should mean something to a few people. And you haven't lived until you've listened to 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' sung by Frank Zappa's kids.

Anyway:

Happy Christmas to everyone who reviewed: Ardwynna Morrigu (is this enough friction for you?) Billy(valid point on the smoking, don't do it, kids) Cyberwing (I hope this update was soon enough for you) DreamScene (yup, you're right. Vertical Horizon did perform Grey Sky Morning, not Gin Blossoms. Thanks a bunch)

Ghost140 (I'm not sure who my fave character is, but that's my favourite RvB episode by far) Iudex Acerbus (the neuroscience bits in this and other chapters had me wishing I'd paid more attention in my neurology lectures instead of sketching all over my notes) Jack Hanek(I promise I'll read Early Graves some time over this holiday) Quistis88 (thanks a lot for reviewing so often) RubyTuesday13 (your review pulled me out of a writing hole) Seventhe (ooh, NaNoWriMo!I always mean to do that, but I guess I'm just too much of a perfectionist. That, and it takes me about ten pages just to clear my throat. What you writing?) Unlocked Heart (uncritical praise is always good) Verdannii (ta and Merry Christmas) and last but not least, the cryptically named 0-0 (thank you for pointing out the massive amount of time I've wasted on this over the last three years)

And yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus….

-xahra99


	13. Chapter Twelve: Frontier Psychiatrist

Recovering The Satellites

I watched the proverbial sunrise

Coming up over the Pacific

And you might think I'm losing my mind

But I will shy away from the specifics

'Cause I don't want you to know where I am

And this is no place to try and live my life

Relient K: Who I am Hates Who I've Been(edit)

-That boy needs therapy

Avalanche: Frontier Psychiatrist

Chapter Twelve: Frontier Psychiatrist

* * *

"Sudden death?" Seifer invited. He dealt quickly, hands tanned against the pale cards. The journey to Esthar City's port on the shores of the Inland Sea was a long one. Seifer had invested his time in a game of Triple Triad with Odine's security and was the proud possessor of two Estharian standard issue poleaxes, five hundred gil, a chipped dragon fang strung on a piece of leather and an M-stone piece. The Esthar soldiers scowled and stared at the back of Seifer's cards.

One of Odine's white-coated aides tapped on the cabin door. "SeeD?"

Seifer didn't bother to correct him. "Yeah. One minute." He picked a couple of cards from his pack and tactfully lost an all-or-nothing last hand. The soldiers collected their possessions from the pile heaped in the middle of the table, sneaking decks into uniform pockets or belt-holders as they did so. The aide gestured to a narrow staircase and turned back to the soldiers. Seifer heard the sound of raised voices as he climbed the stairs to a cabin. He grinned.

The cabin, like all the boat's interior, was relentlessly minimalist and very, very white. Seifer's heavy boots tracked sand across the bleached linoleum. He blinked in the bright sunlight reflecting from every surface in the room, raised a hand to shade his eyes for a second and thought that Odine should have handed out tinted goggles on the way up the gangplank. "What do you want? I was winning."

"You were cheating."

Seifer grinned unrepentantly. "So?" He threw the kitbag he had brought from Balamb onto one of the smooth pale seats and sat, pulling the pack of cards from the pocket of his filthy trousers. "Want a game?"

The aide folded his arms over his crisp lab coat. "Odine sent me. He wants to know if you would like anything." His voice was educated, disdainful.

Seifer shuffled the cards between his hands, laying them out in the pattern of a single-triad game. He ran through a metal inventory of all his possessions in his mind. It didn't take long. "Cigarettes?"

"Cigarettes? We haven't got any."

"You got any spare ammo? Fire or demolition, for preference."

"No."

"Money?"

"_No_."

"Spare clothes?"

"I suppose-"the aide said reluctantly, "that we might have some."

"Now you're talking." Seifer grinned. He cleaned ichor from beneath his fingernails with the edge of one of the cards as the aide rummaged in one of the overhead lockers. Finally he threw a heavy bundle of green felt into Seifer's lap. "Here."

The ex-knight shook it out, slightly puzzled. "Do I _look_ like I wear a fucking dress?"

The aide smiled, superciliously. "It's a robe."

"Forget it. I'm not wearing that shit."

"It's _traditional_."

For an answer, Seifer balled up the clothing and heaved it in the direction of the aide, who fumbled the toss. "For _you_. Not me."

The aide sniffed.

"I didn't mean robes. I meant _normal_ clothes. You got anything like that?"

The scientist picked up the bundle. "I will look." He seemed about to say something more, but shook his head slightly, turned round and left the cabin. Seifer turned back to the featureless ocean view, the only point of colour in all of the cabin's clean whiteness. He scratched his head and felt sand grate between the roots of his hair.

He was halfway through the game when the aide returned with a pair of plastic carrier bags filled with clothing. He dropped them at Seifer's feet and left with a sniff of contempt.

As Seifer had suspected, most of the clothing was wildly unsuitable. He discarded a threadbare robe, a suit jacket and a pink brassiere before he found a pair of dark trousers and a navy vest that looked as if they would fit. The second bag held an assortment of random accessories; mostly mismatched pieces of Estharian armour. Hidden beneath a pair of yellow foam flip-flops with platform soles (which reminded Seifer of Selphie) was a dark beanie which he stuffed into one pocket, hoping it would camouflage his face in the city.

Seifer changed in a tiny bathroom built into the ship's hull, washing his face and hands in the clean white sink. He transferred the contents of his pockets (cards, a few hundred gil and a Flare Stone left over from his sojourn in Balamb's laboratories) into the new trousers and returned to his solitary card game. When even that entertainment palled he rested his boots on his kitbag and watched the Centra islands fade into the distance.

Odine came to fetch him when the craft had cleared the narrow water-gates that opened on the Inland Sea. The little scientist had exchanged his ruff for a smaller, travelling version striped in black and red, suitable for the boat's narrow doorways. Despite the aide's contempt for Seifer's Balamb clothing, Odine's outfit looked nothing like any of the other scientists'. It looked nothing like anything Seifer had ever seen. Odine was generically foreign.

"Have you had a pleasant journey?"

Seifer's reserves of small talk, never extensive, had been exhausted by his conversation with Edea. He was bored, and didn't bother to hide it. "Yeah, it was all right. We there yet? This yacht needs a radio feed or something."

Odine ignored him. "Do you know much of Esthar?"

"Not much." Seifer said, curiously. Esthar City didn't hire many mercenaries. As pacifists, they were completely outside Seifer's normal frame of reference. He'd flown over the city in the Lunatic Pandora, two years ago, and remembered how Esthar's glass skyscrapers and neon lights had gleamed in the middle of the continent's barren desert. "Lots of glass, right?"

Odine looked at Seifer as if he had two heads. "Of course we have glass. Esthar iz ze most technologically advanced nation in the world! My laboratory iz based in the centre of ze city and holds now our full research team. My Lunatic Pandora Laboratory was damaged in ze Lunar Cry, so we deemed it prurient to relocate our entire research team to the city. Ze current President is kindly disposed towards my work, and we have all of ze latest equipment. Esthar iz a most civilised society. You will enjoy your time here."

Seifer doubted it. "Maybe. Was that all you came to tell me?"

"We are landing in ten minutes at Esthar City port. Be ready to land when the ship docks. Please complete this form." He held out a piece of paper and a pen.

Seifer took the form from Odine and scowled down at it. Most of the questions were followed by a pair of printed boxes. One read yes, one no.

_1/ What is the purpose of your visit?_

Seifer pulled a biro from his pocket. He considered the question for a while and scrawled '_Business_' next to the sentence. That was easy. The second question was harder.

_2/ Have you ever been involved in a military coup or attempted to overthrow a government?_

Seifer paused, biro poised over the question. He frowned, wondering whether to choose truth over prudence, and ticked _No. _The rest of the questions were easy. Seifer finished the form in five minutes and tossed the completed document onto the table. The blue skyscrapers of Esthar loomed closer in the distance.

Despite what he'd told Odine, there were two facts Seifer did remember about Esthar. The first was that he'd heard the city described in mercenaries' terms as a really tough gig and the second was, well, they had some strange customs.

* * *

The dawn light shone dimly through massed grey clouds, thousands of miles north of Esthar. It sparkled briefly from rainslick pebbles on the beach and from the metallic hull of the ATX-11 troop transport moored against the side of the fragile jetty. The globular Shumi lamps that hung from thin poles along the jetty swung wildly in the wind.

Quistis raised her head and listened to the gale, but the only thing howling was the wind.

She smiled with the satisfaction of a tough job well done and laced the hood of her parka more tightly against the driving rain.

Fuujin, her thin body hunched in the shelter of the transport's curved sides, read a crumpled piece of paper.

Quistis pointed to the note with a gloved hand. "Is Raijin missing you?"

Fuujin looked startled, almost guilty. She wiped rain from her face. "PARDON?" Her pale hair hung down in rats-tails and dripped onto her collar.

Quistis motioned. "The note?"

"YES. RAIJIN." Fuujin said. She stuffed the note into her pocket and ticked off the last item on her clipboard. "DONE?"

Quistis nodded, drawing a large cross in wax pencil onto the last box of cargo. Their mission had been lucrative, there were five hundred Phoenix Downs nestled in tissue paper inside the plastic crates. A waxed kitbag slung over Quistis's shoulder held the precious phoenix pinions. "Let's go!"

Fuujin snapped a command to one of the SeeD cadets at her side. It didn't take them long to load the last of the cargo; the Shumi had been generous but not excessively so, and it wasn't long before the cadets were ready to leave. Quistis, counting heads, kicked the slush from her boots against the harbour wall and followed them down into the cabin.

They reached Balamb harbour by noon. Quistis, who had spent most of the journey teaching the local rules of Triple Triad to some of the newest cadets, was surprised when the pilot called her up before the craft had reached the harbour.

"Instructor Trepe?"

"Yes?"

"We have a problem." His voice was crackly over the intercom, but not worried.

Quistis put down her cards. She hit the button for the hatch that separated crew and pilot, and leant over the back of her chair. "What's wrong? We've got permission to dock."

The pilot seemed more exasperated than concerned. "Yeah, well, we might have permission, but the harbour's full up. See for yourself."

Quistis ducked her head to stare out of the windscreen, batting a pair of fluffy dice in the SeeD colours out of the way.

She saw a solid wall of naval grey, a whole harbour full of Balamb boats. Troop carriers were moored to the harbour walls and, more unusually, anchored in the shallow harbour itself. From the sea, they appeared so closely packed that you could have walked from deck to deck to shore without ever having to lower a gangplank. A few fishermen, caught between approaching craft, shouted and waved boathooks at the SeeDs on guard, who watched them stoically. The boats were all, without exception, Balamb troop carriers. Quistis counted each one analytically, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

The pilot had come to the same conclusion. "That's our whole _fleet_."

"I know." Quistis told him. "Anchor in the bay. We'll take the inflatables in."

"Looks like we're not the only ones coming home." the pilot said grimly. "Something's going on."

Fuujin braced one arm against the edge of the hatch and peered over Quistis' shoulder. "WHY STOPPED?"

"Problems with parking." the pilot told her.

Fuujin glared at him, ducked her head and glanced out of the window. The fluffy dice bounced off her forehead and she reached up with one hand to snap the string. The toys ricocheted from the instrument panel and rolled under the pilot's seat.

"Hey!"

Fuujin ignored him. Her eyebrows raised for a moment before her face settled back into its usual expression of relentless placidity. "BUSY." she said, thoughtfully.

"What's Squall planning?" Quistis said suspiciously.

Fuujin shrugged. "OURS NOT TO REASON. WILL FIND OUT."

"This can't just be coincidence."

"AFFIRMATIVE."

Thirty minutes later, as they arrived at the Garden gates, Quistis found the majority of Garden in agreement with them. She arrived concerned and more than a little worried, still slightly seasick from the rough harbour crossing in the troop carrier's Zodiac rafts, but she felt her mood change as she walked up the steps into the Garden itself. There was a vibrant excitement about the place that had been absent when she left. Clusters of SeeDs and cadets alike dotted the elegant flights of stairs, exchanging rumours in hushed voices. Quistis had heard the same sentiments repeated over and over again by the time she reached the security checkpoints.

"I heard there's going to be a mission." a cadet confided behind her in a hushed voice as Quistis walked past.

"There's always a mission." someone whispered back.

"A _special_ mission."

"I heard that somebody hired the whole of Garden."

"I heard somebody hired _all_ the Gardens."

"Nobody could afford that!"

Quistis rolled her eyes. She pitched her voice to a carrying level and dismissed her cadets. "Nice work over the last few weeks, team. You did well, SeeDs. Be proud of that." She watched the cadets attempt to stand even straighter to attention, bursting with the excitement of being called _SeeDs_. Seifer would have said something sarcastic, but Quistis thought it was rather sweet. "Make sure you've got all your stuff off the boat, we don't want anything left behind. Mission reports and grades will be in your pigeonholes in a week's time." She saluted. "You're dismissed."

Nobody moved. One cadet raised a cautious hand. "What do you think about the rumours, Instructor?"

Quistis didn't like to admit that she was as much in the dark as they were. "We're SeeDs! We don't gossip. We'll find out what's happening when our commanding officer wants us to know, and that's that. And we'll find out _when_ it's happening, and _how_. And that's all I have to say."

The cadets scattered into the familiar halls of Garden, gossiping despite Quistis's lecture. She watched them go, her body relaxing. It was good to be back at Garden; the familiar atmosphere enveloped and comforted her. It felt like home.

"Quistis!"

She turned and was immediately enveloped in a swirl of tan duster. "Hey, Quisty, don't be such a spoilsport!"

"Long time no see, Irvine." Quistis said, hugging the mercenary back in return. Irvine looked well, his reddish hair bleached almost ginger by the sun. He wasn't wearing his hat, and there was a faint but clear tan line across his forehead. "How was the mission?"

The Galbadian shrugged. "So-so. We got paid. Hey, though, what do you think about all these rumours?"

"I hadn't heard them." Quistis said. " I just got back."

Selphie, her eyes dancing, tugged on her boyfriend's sleeve. The heels of her cowboy boots clicked on the tiles. "Yes, but you must be dying to know –just like all the rest of us! Besides, the gossip's true, for once. I have _reliable_ sources. We've got a big mission, and I for one am simply desperate to know more."

"It sounds strange."

"It sounds _expensive_." Irvine said, approvingly.

"Has Squall talked to any of you about it?" Quistis asked, fishing for information.

"He hasn't told anyone." Selphie swung herself up to sit on the high railing that bordered the moat. "Not even Rinoa. I asked her."

"He hasn't told _Rinoa_?"

"Nope."

Quistis considered. She patted the bag of phoenix feathers at her side, too valuable to be left for the dock staff to unload. "I've got to go and see Xu now. I'll ask her about it. "

"Yeah, do. We can catch up later."

"I won't be long." Quistis said. She waved at them both, including Selphie-who almost unbalanced waving back- and took the lift up to the top floor, remembering a three-week-old conversation. _"There is one mission… It's in Esthar. And it's big. Entire-Garden big. And if we were to get this contract-"_

"_What contract, Squall?"_

"_Then we could use more healing items._

The lift whirred and clanked as it ascended to the third floor. The lift system, Quistis thought, had never been quite the same since Seifer had jammed the mechanism. _I've got the healing items. So what about this contract?_

She was not incredibly surprised to find Xu's desk empty. A yellow Post-it note adhered to the computer screen. '_Quistis. See me_.' it read, in Squall's handwriting.

Quistis pushed open the ornate office door, carrying the note in her hand. "Squall?"

The note stuck. She shook one hand violently to detach it. "I brought the -why won't this thing come off?- phoenix feathers.."

She looked around. He wasn't in his normal place behind the ornate desk and it took Quistis a few seconds to realise that he was standing at one of the windows, looking down. Sunlight glinted from his dusty hair.

"Squall?"

Squall crossed the room to his cluttered desk in three long strides. "Quistis?" He seemed excited, or as excited as Squall Leonhart ever got. He threw a letter onto the table. "Read this."

Quistis took the kitbag from her shoulder and put it in the middle of the desk. She flicked her wrist, dislodging the note, and started to read.

"_The government of Esthar has embarked upon an ambitious and groundbreaking scheme, the likes of which has never been seen before in our lifetimes……. releasing an area of approximately two hundred and fifty thousand square kilometres to be used for agricultural purposes…._"

"Most of it desert." Squall pointed out. "They need minerals for manufacturing as well as crops."

Quistis scanned the letter. "_As the hiring party, Esthar City reserves the right to lay down certain contractual conditions….."_ -Sir, I don't like the sound of this."

"Keep reading. It gets better." Squall said. He opened the bag and peered in, the golden light from the phoenix pinions lighting his features with a soft glow. The contents seemed to meet his expectations; he nodded once and stowed the bag away behind his desk.

""_In the unlikely event of Esthar being found to harbour monsters after the contract termination date Esthar City will gain no net profit from the agricultural expansion of former waste land, therefore no payment will be forthcoming."-_That's insulting, Squall."

Squall shrugged. There were dark circles around his eyes. Quistis noticed that his gunblade, leant against the desk, looked as if it had not been used for several weeks. She read down to the scrawled signature at the bottom of the page. "_Laguna Loire, President Of Esthar.._." and wondered what in Hyne's name Laguna thought he was playing at.

"What do you think?"

Quistis ducked her head, embarrassed in the face of Squall's calm. "Ambitious." She said, finally.

Squall matched her posture, standing easily in the sunlight. "Say crazy."

Quistis put the letter down. "It's a great idea-in principle. It might work. It might not, too." She looked at Squall, wondering what this was about. "You accepted?

Squall nodded.

"Why?" Quistis asked, wondering if her commander had gone crazy. "It's obvious. They're sending these to _all_ the Gardens. It'll be a massive mission, bigger than anything. Impossible. And okay, we seem to have got ourselves the reputation for doing the impossible on a daily basis, but this? It's too big for us."

"It's not just a mission, Quistis." Was that her imagination, or was there a faint hint of disappointment in his voice?

Quistis fell back on formality, wishing that she was more appropriately dressed. The sun glinted off her spectacles, and she tilted her head, raising one hand to shade her eyes. "With respect, that seems to be exactly what it is."

"It's an idea. A fantasy. SeeDs may fight for money, but we also fight for beliefs. It might not work, but if it does, think of the possibilities. We won't lose much, and if we succeed, well, it'll have been done. By SeeDs. Esthar will owe us. And if we can do that in Esthar, we can do it again. In Balamb, even." Squall's voice was level and confident, right through what was a long speech, for him. "It'd be a coup."

Quistis thought of a Balamb without monsters. It was a strange idea. "It would, but don't you think we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot? Half of our contracts are routine monster-slaying."-_and you don't need me to tell you this, she thought, because I know you've already considered it, and decided to go through, and Hyne help me, I'll follow you._

_So will everyone else, they trust Squall._

"We'll still be here, Quistis. It might not work, and then we're right back to where we started. And if it does, then we've got a steady income. We need to stay here, ready to fight, for generations. The Gardens _will_ change in that time. This could be one way of dealing with that. "

Quistis sighed, resigned. Her mission fatigues itched, she longed to be out of them and into a hot shower. "How long?"

"We've still got to negotiate the finer points of the contract. But we've got three weeks." He glanced at a calendar, glued to the glass-panelled walls. "Early August."

Quistis rested a hip on the corner of Squall's desk. Her shadow cut a diagonal line across the paperwork. "When do you plan to make the announcement?"

"Later this afternoon." Squall told her. "But do me a favour. Don't stay to hear it."

Quistis frowned, surprised. "What?"

"You wanted remote missions. I need a liason in Esthar, somebody I can trust."

"Why me?" Quistis asked, reasonably, as she thought, remembering Selphie, Irvine, and the hot shower waiting for her in her quarters. Her mind ran over equipment maintenance, duty rosters. It was obvious to her that Squall thought that she should be kept busy, and she even agreed with him.

Squall toyed with a pencil. "I've got my reasons."

_I just bet you have_. Quistis thought. "And what if I don't want to go?"

"Then I'll find someone else." He stabbed the pencil distractedly behind his ear.

"Who?"

"Someone. It's a good contract, though. You've dealt with the president before. He likes you."

"Laguna likes everyone." Quistis pointed out.

Squall smiled briefly, his mouth twisting. "I'll find you copies of all the contracts, maps, whatever you want. The workload shouldn't be too taxing. You'll have a lot of time to yourself, and few responsibilities."

"I've just got back." Quistis said blankly.

"You'll go?" Squall pressed.

"Of course." Quistis told him. Her eyes travelled to Squall's gunblade, and from there to an empty space in the corner of the room. "There is just one thing, though."

"Whatever." Squall said in his cool voice. He sounded distracted, no doubt wondering how his speech would be received. Quistis didn't envy him.

She gathered her reluctant courage and asked. "Is Seifer still here?" Her voice sounded loud and out of place in the quiet room, rough with three solid weeks of shouting commands to cadets as she battled monster after monster.

Squall's mouth twitched again in one of his here-and-gone-again smiles. "He's gone away for a while."

Quistis frowned. "Where?"

Squall shrugged.

Suspicions crowded in Quistis's mind. "Squall, where?"

"Look, Almasy is a prick. But Garden can use him."

Quistis did not dispute it. "_Where_?"

"He left to sort his head out. You have to admit he needed it." Squall said.

"I am the last one to argue with you about that." Quistis told him. "Where?"

"Away."

Quistis sighed and gave up. Seifer could look after himself, although he was less good about caring for other people. Sometimes she thought that if the whole of civilisation was destroyed in a terrible disaster, the first thing she would see as she crawled from the rubble would be Seifer, sitting on a rock and smoking a cigarette. "He's okay?"

"He will be. The people around him may not. But I can't have him hanging around here causing trouble. And yes, I know that's what he does. Hyne, if you couldn't sort him out-I had to admit, I had hopes."

Quistis almost blushed. "Squall-" She turned her face to the light, hoping that any accidental reddening would be ascribed to the warmth of the sun.

"Will you take the mission?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll see you in three weeks, in Esthar. Take the night off. You can leave in the morning."

"Seifer?"

"I'll keep you posted."

"Thanks."

"Quistis?"

"Yes?"

"Keep your eyes open."

"Sir.

* * *

The customs official held up both hands in what he hoped was a conciliatory gesture. "Please put the sword _down_, sir."

The visitor looked around, then seemed to realise that the official was in fact addressing him. He was a young man, with a suntanned face and eyes too old for his age. His hair was cropped far too closely for a civilian. "What?"

"The sword, sir…." The official murmured.

"Nobody _told_ me not to bring weapons into the city."

The customs official was having a bad day. People should not have to be told, in short, easy-to-explain words, not to wander through customs carrying a three-foot long sword in their bag. People just _didn't_. And they certainly shouldn't, when alarms started to wail and guards move closer, take the sword out of the bag and bring the blade up to level at the throat of a hard working and honest customs official. He attempted to swallow and did the best he could while trying not to make any sudden movements. "There are certain procedures, sir-please-just put the sword down!"

The blade moved smoothly in the air, inching closer. From the corner of his eye, the official caught sight of the distinctive clothing of Esthar's pre-eminent scientist, Odine, in another queue. Thoughts of hostages running through the small portion of his mind that wasn't currently whimpering in fear, the official moved his body slightly to block the scientist from the stranger's view. Fortunately, Odine himself was scribbling into a notebook and seemed not to have noticed the commotion.

"Procedures?"

The official closed his eyes as the edge of the sword twisted and swung towards him. He wondered how much pressure it would take, on a razor-edge, to cut his throat. "You have to declare any weapons." he said into the darkness.

"Declare?" the man asked, as if this was a new and interesting concept.

The customs official opened his eyes. The sword hadn't moved. The faces of Esthar Custom House's few guards stared at him, frozen in fear. They didn't get much practice at dealing with situations like this. They had not, up until now needed it. "Tell us you have them."

"They don't have this shit in Balamb."

"We are _civilised_, sir." the official murmured. "I am afraid that you are not grasping some simple concepts here. If you refuse to declare your weapon then I am sincerely afraid that charges will be brought against you."

The blade drew back. "Charges?"

"Arms smuggling."

"Smuggling?" the visitor asked in an incredulous voice.

The official had to admit that this situation did not seem to fit the bill. Most smugglers didn't wander through checkpoints waving their goods in the air. "Do you _have_ papers?" he asked hopefully.

The man hunted in one pocket, his eyes never leaving the official's terrified face. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and dropped it on the table. "I'm not smuggling _anything._ I'm from Balamb. It's my job."

The customs official slid a trembling hand to the paper. "May I?" He picked it up, automatically smoothing out creases. "We don't like mercenaries in Esthar, I'm afraid." It was true, but possible the bravest thing he had ever said.

"Suits me. I fucking hate pacifists."

The official fled back onto more comfortable terrain. "I am afraid that if you do not have a valid contract, in addition to valid documentation for all your associated weaponry, then you will be asked to leave…"

"You what? I'm with-"

The customs official would never know how the sentence ended, because right then the scientist Odine looked up from his notebook in a rather bemused fashion, yelped and rushed across the forecourt so fast he looked like he was on casters. A wave of his hand summoned a pair of much smarter and nearly as speedy soldiers

The official's smile faded.

"It's all right, sir, we'll take it from here."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"Thank _Hyne_." the official said, with feeling. A hushed and intense conversation drifted over his shoulder, and he tried not to listen.

"_You can't walk around here with a sword!"_

"_Why not?"_

"_This iz Esthar, not Balamb! The people here are civilians! They will think zat you are trying to kill them!"_

"_I'm not. If I was trying, they'd know."_

"_That does not matter!"_

* * *

Seifer stood by while the Estharian troops unloaded his gunblade and fixed a small metal clip to the trigger. He estimated that it would take him approximately three minutes and a cold chisel to have the weapon fully operative, but he said nothing. It seemed impolite, after they'd gone to so much trouble to tape the blade, and Quistis had always complained he was too damn rude.

The soldiers handed Hyperion back to him ceremoniously. Seifer gave them a sloppy salute in return. In any parade at Garden it would have earned him an instant demerit, but the custom officials only winced at the military gesture. Seifer grinned. He wondered if there was anywhere in Esthar that sold ex-military combat trousers, the black and white urban camouflage kind that stuck out _everywhere_.

"This is Esthar." Odine hissed at him as they left the building. "We have rules!" He didn't look annoyed, far from it, he looked positively delighted.

Seifer shrugged. "Who cares?" He refused to glance down, stubbornly denying the translucent walkways that allowed a clear view of the ground, several hundred feet below.

"We think that this iz the way a country ought to be run. It iz historical. A legacy, one might say, of our last sorceress."

Seifer snorted. "I heard." His eyes strayed down at the transparent walkway and he quickly glanced up, focusing on Odine's narrow ruff and pointed beard.

"That does not surprise me." Odine said, casually. "I would hav though that you, of all people, would have an interest."

Seifer narrowed his eyes. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Odine ignored him. "Do you know about ze wars?"

"Everyone knows about the wars." Seifer swatted at a fly. "So what?"

"I am not talking about ze last wars. I am talking about ze wars in Esthar. Ze country has been closed off for a good reason. And because of zat reason, ze people of Esthar do not much like ze soldiers."

"Yeah. I noticed."

"Adel, yes? She used many soldiers to do her work. Hers was a reign of terror. Now do you know how the sorceress was defeated?"

"I thought Laguna-"

"It was because of me, Odine! I built her containment vessel. Zat oaf, he did nothing."

"Thanks for the warning." Seifer said, in a tone that did not sound at all thankful.

"Anyway, this iz my laboratory. I will assign one of my lab assistants to show you to our room and then we vill commence to start with ze work."

The building was, like most of the buildings in Esthar, like nothing Seifer had ever seen before. An ugly hybrid of metal and glass, it loomed over the walkways around it. A revolving sign in front read '_Odine Industries Technological Research_' in blue neon. Inside, it was the same, metal and glass, steel struts and wide windows. Scientists in crisp white coats bustled around the building with a self-important air, bowing deeply to Odine as he passed. Seifer would have warned the scientist not to get any ideas, but it would have been no use. Odine hurried from one screen to another, checking readouts against books of fat printouts, stirring a beaker here, tapping a flask there. He ripped reams of graph paper from a printer and read them as they walked, beckoning an aide with a flick of his wrist. He gestured Seifer to follow her and tripped over the trails of paper.

Seifer snickered.

The room was much more ordinary than Seifer had thought, after the labs. He'd expected science; stainless steel, yellow bags of clinical waste, taps with long spatulate handles, but it was just another room. Seifer slung his bag on the bed carelessly and looked at the aide.

"Doctor Odine will expect to see you in the main laboratory, in one hour."

"Yeah, okay-where?"

The aide sighed and activated a small wall-screen. "Maps of the building are on the main network. You do know how to use a network, don't you?" Without waiting for Seifer's reply, she hurried on. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll come get you when it's time."

Seifer looked round the bare-walled room. "Yeah." he said doubtfully. As the door closed he sat down on the bed and fished Hyperion from his bag.

When the blade was cleaned of any tiny flecks of grease or blood or sand it might have picked up on his journey from Centra he stood and let the blade flick up into a guard position. There was just enough space to practice, losing himself in the familiar drill of hack, parry, block, cut. The handle of the gunblade was warm, the room quiet save for the hum of the air conditioning. He'd practised in worse places, and he'd slept in much worse.

After practice, he sprawled out on the bed and checked his watch. His warm up drill didn't take long, standard Garden procedure designed to focus the mind and warm the muscles. He still had nearly ten minutes, and _tha_t was assuming he could be bothered to be on time.

Seifer considered his appearance. There was a proper mirror hung on the back of the tiny bathroom door, hidden behind a few discarded white coats. He ran his hands through his hair to shake out most of the sand and tugged the hat further down over his forehead. The clothes were okay, about what you could expect from borrowed gear, but in Esthar, in the labs, they stood out. That was fine for the moment, but Seifer was aware that there might come a point where blending in would be a very good idea indeed. What he needed was camouflage.

Seifer picked up one of the discarded lab coats from the bathroom floor, searching through the pockets out of habit. He dropped the plastic nametag on the floor and kicked it behind the cistern, examining the embroidered patch decorating the breast pocket. The blue stitching read _Odine Technological Research_ in blocky Balamb script.

He shrugged the coat on and grinned at his reflection in the mirror. It grinned back. There was a tiny pencil inscription next to the mirror. Somebody had scrawled _'Doctor Odine eats babies'_ in red ink, and underneath another unnamed graffitist had written '_Yes, but at least he peels them first._'

Seifer sniggered.

There was a knock on his door. "Shall we start?"

Seifer glanced at the clock. She was early. "Hell, give me a minute." He delved into his bag, dropped a packet of cigarettes into his pocket and followed her out of the door and into Odine's laboratory.

It was not what Seifer had been expecting. He'd reassured Zell confidently on the beach, told him that he would discover the secrets of Odine's researches and fix Edea. Zell hadn't asked him how, exactly, he would do that. Neither had Squall. Seifer guessed that he must have sounded as if he knew what he was talking about.

_Hyne, I wish I wasn't so damn convincing. _

The laboratory was filled with computers and machines, all coated in ubiquitous condom-coloured plastic and stamped with the _Odine Laboratories_ logo. The only anachronistic touch was a large carved lintel which looked out of place over the hi-tech door, studded with security systems. There were dozens of network terminals, spaghetti junctions of coloured wires, mugs half-full of cold coffee. Half of the machines looked as if they analysed results from the other ones. Seifer's heart sank.

He had assumed that whatever scanty knowledge he'd gleaned from the engineers would be sufficient to decipher Odine's secrets. Looking at all the equipment, he realised that the engineers' introduction to modern science had been kindergarten stuff and this was full-on postgraduate work.

Odine was seated at a surprisingly normal desk, half-hidden in the tangle of machinery. He looked up as Seifer and his escort neared the table and smiled. He had changed back into one of his full-on ruffs, generously streaked with yellow and red dye. It made him resemble a circus clown.

Seifer sat down. "What's going on?" He found the cigarettes in his pocket, leant back into his chair and lit up with casual insouciance.

"I hav some preliminary questions for you."

"Okay. Just make sure they're in easy-to-understand words." Seifer glanced around at the chattering machines, wondering what they did, and promised himself that he'd find out.

Odine coughed ostentatiously, but said nothing to Seifer about his cigarettes. He shuffled the sheaf of paper in his hands. "I sent to Balamb for your medical history."

The words blindsided Seifer, something he hadn't been expecting. Maybe this wasn't going to be the cushy gig he had anticipated. "You did _what_?" he said warily.

Odine ignored the dangerous tone. "I see that from your notes that you've been psychoanalysed before?

"Guess I was. I think the shrink still has flashbacks. You sure you're up to it?"

"I think zat I will be equal to the challenge." Odine said evenly.

Seifer shook his head. Somehow he'd never considered that Odine's interrogations might be unpleasant. He inhaled sharply, tasting the familiar scent of nicotine in his mouth and reminded himself that he could leave at any time.

_And I was wondering how you fucked up Edea._

Odine turned to the top page. "Did you ever think zat you were not cut out to be a SeeD?"

Seifer shrugged. "No."

"Whyever did you join?"

"The female officers all wear miniskirts."

Odine made a mark on a piece of paper. "That iz not a reason."

"It is." Seifer told him. "Just not a good one."

Odine flicked over a page. "What were you before you were a SeeD?"

"I was a kid." He glared at the scientist. "Look, is this going anywhere? I've got things to do and you've got all this stuff written down. You don't need me. Just read it."

"Cross-checking of sources is important." Odine said serenely. "Now, I have taken ze liberty of obtaining certain pieces of information from ze Garden Archives."

"How the hell did you did you get those?" Seifer said, forgetting that he was pretending to be dumb. It wasn't much of an act –he guessed that Odine considered most people stupid.

Odine paged through a few printouts. "Your medical history is rather scarce. Several incidents of battle or training injuries. One rather short report from the official Garden committee, stating you fit to join Balamb, age twelve, one even shorter report age thirteen recommending an extensive course of therapy which they refused to provide in person. As for your personal history-"

There was nothing in it to deny. Seifer frowned. "I thought those records got destroyed."

"You would think so, wouldn't you."

"Hoped. Shit. I thought they'd have trashed those years ago." Seifer said. He seemed to have run out of smart answers, and the questioning was disturbing him more than he cared to think about. Sure, he'd known the Kramers had the notes somewhere, but nobody had ever talked about them with him. Not in a long time.

Odine made a few more notes. "Luckily for me, they did not. I note that your mother was Galbadian. A soldier. Died in ze course of duty aged twenty-six."

"I guess." Seifer told him. "Might have some relatives somewhere. They've probably changed their name."

"You father was Josef Almasy, ex-army mechanic. He died aged twenty-eight in an automobile accident in Balamb City, leaving you an orphan at the age of five. You were adopted by an aunt. Three foster homes in two months, then ze Kramers. Why did he leave the army?"

"Fuck knows. Look, I don't need this. I'm fine."

Odine smiled. "You are not. To put it bluntly, I suspect that you have brain damage."

"Knew _that."_ Seifer muttered.

"Any episodes of paralysis, or loss of sensation?"

"No."

"Epilepsy?"

"Nah."

"Speech disturbances? Loss of communication skills?"

Seifer exhaled. "None of that."

"Loss of vision?"

"No."

"Hyperavoidance behaviour?"

Seifer frowned at the unaccustomed medicalese. "What?"

"A constant feeling of threat, trouble concentrating, exaggerated startle reactions, alcohol or drug abuse to forget, poor impulse control, suicide risk?"

The ex-knight shifted uneasily in his seat. "Why the hell would I have any of that?"

"Memories recurring unexpectedly?"

"Nah." Seifer lied. Images danced in the corner of his vision; _report, my knight_, and makeup bizarre enough to be a mask. He blinked, and they disappeared.

"Strange dreams?"

"I don't dream."

"Difficulty in sleeping or concentrating?"

"I sleep fine."

"Is there anything else which you think that you should tell me?"

Seifer considered. "Okay, I just get this urge to conquer large parts of the planet sometimes."

Odine's pencil scored a line across the paper. "Really!"

Seifer grinned. "No."

The scientist gave him an irritated look and reached for an eraser. "Do you hear voices?"

"I hear a little voice that's telling me to get the hell out of here." Seifer said, and meant it. He'd never thought that he'd have to reveal some of his own secrets to solve Edea's problem. He could just imagine Edea trusting Odine with the truth, and the scientist latching on to each answer like a T-Rexaur with a bone.

Odine reached for a mug at his side and took a long drink. He hadn't offered Seifer anything. He looked up and fixed Seifer with beady eyes. "Do you understand the old tongue?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Seifer said levelly.

Odine made a mark on his paper. "_Quid novi."_ he said, without looking at Seifer.

The sentence translated itself in Seifer's brain as '_What's new?_' It was true, he didn't understand most of what Odine was getting at. "Fuck you." he told the scientist, stopped, and glared.

"_Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum! Interdum modo elasitur_." Odine said innocently.

Seifer rested a hand on his forehead, the cigarette burning itself out in his hand. He tried very hard to think about other things, but no matter how much he tried, the sentence translated itself as '_Was I speaking Latin? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out.' _Seifer noted that the scientist spoke perfectly normally in the strange language, with none of his lisp. He swore. "Like hell."

"I thought you would understand." Odine said happily. "Would you like to review the answers to any of my questions?"

Seifer had the feeling he was standing on thin ice. He inched back. "No."

"Interesting. Very well. That iz enough for this morning. I need time in which to prepare certain experiments. You may leave, unless you have any questions for me. Explore our city." He pulled a small piece of plastic from a pocket of his lab coat, a similar size and shape to the SeeD identification cards. "You hav ze freedom of ze city, but I must ask you not to leave. I will set hours for my research and I will expect you to be there. I will make the laboratory available out of zis time for your own studies, should you wish." He smiled superciliously, as if he knew that Seifer didn't have the faintest idea what most of the equipment did, and pushed the card along the table top. "This card will serve as identification and banker's card. I have taken the liberty of having your personal details coded into it. There iz a small amount of ready cash on it."

Seifer took the card. "How much?" He stuffed it into his pocket; not the lab coat, which he would leave in the lab, but his trouser pocket. Camouflage only worked in context.

Odine shrugged, as if money did not concern him. "Enough. Any more of ze questions?"

Seifer looked around. It was useless asking Odine about any of the machines, he decided, he'd only get suspicious. "What's that 'VVVVV' shit carved over the door, anyway?"

"It's an inscription." Odine told him. "In Latin. A motto."

"A what?"

"A quotation. The five V's stand for '_Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Viv_i'-'By the power of truth, I, while living-"

"-Have conquered the universe. " Seifer translated. "Modest." _Scientists_, he thought. _Ego junkies, every one of them._

"Each to their own."

"Who said it in the first place?"

"Nobody you would know. It iz from an old, old, text. 'Faust,' it vas called. Now. I will expect you back, promptly, tomorrow morning at nine. We will continue then."

Seifer shrugged. "Whatever."

He left the laboratory without any trouble and walked into the city. It was no surprise that he liked it almost as little as the lab itself. The blue glass and skyscrapers were magnificent, but the whole effect made Seifer feel small and useless, as if the human race had moved on and he'd been out-evolved. It made him remember that he'd spent almost all his life in a small town whose two main exports were soldiers and badly-preserved fish. It was not a sensation he enjoyed.

Everything was too brightly coloured, too clean, too _delicate_ to be real, as if he was watching through tinted glass. To Seifer, real meant dirt and mud and fighting. The Estharians didn't even act like they were alive. They were far too polite.

He glanced down and shuddered.

_And it doesn't help that all the roads are transparent. That's what you get for putting a bunch of fucking artists in charge of city planning._

Everybody else seemed to think that walking over a thousand-foot drop with nothing between you and certain death except a two inch slab of plastic was perfectly normal. It took him half an hour to get over gripping the handrail everywhere he walked, and the floors _still_ made him want to hurl all over the pretty pastel colours.

He walked on, trying not to think about Odine's questioning, about his machines.

_Shit, I never should have come._

He stopped in the middle of the pavement, the crowd eddying around him. Even though the streets were crowded at this time, nobody pushed or shouted. They were all far too well-mannered. It pissed Seifer off like nothing on earth, but these days he never needed much to set him off.

"Get the fuck out of my way."

The nearest Estharian averted her eyes and sidled past without touching him. Everybody else gave him a wide berth as he walked over to the railing and stared down at the city's lower levels far below. They probably thought he was crazy.

_Yeah? You and me both._

Seifer sighed, rested a hand on his forehead and moved on. It wasn't until he found himself in a shopping arcade that he thought to use the cashcard Odine had given him. The Estharians seemed to like spending large amounts of their money on useless crap, there were whole streets lined with shops. He wandered among the robed crowds until he finally found one that sold magical items, and went in, surprised at the absence of other visitors. The other shops were packed with customers, but this one was empty. A few artfully displayed stones and bottles gleamed on black velvet or locked behind glass cases, but the stock was unremarkable; nothing but Hi-potions, and a variety of ammunition. Seifer reached into a box and pulled out a handful of bullets, rolling each one critically between his gloved hands.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

Seifer looked up. The shopkeeper was unremarkable except for a truly bizarre blond hairstyle that out-weirded even Zell. "How much for the ammo?"

"That depends, sir."

"On what?"

"Do you have a licence?" The tone of the shopkeeper's voice implied very much that Seifer did not have such a licence.

Seifer fished into his pocket and held up Odine's card. The proprietor took it from him and ran it through a reader built into the desk, whistling. "I'm afraid that this is not a licence, sir."

Typical Estharian, Seifer thought sourly, extremely polite while telling you _no_. "Who's allowed licences?"

The man thought. "Estharian soldiers, sir. And those with special dispensation. Certain visitors, on contract. That's all."

"I'm a SeeD!"

"If you have proof, then I will be happy to serve you."

Seifer turned away, letting the bullets fall through his fingers. "Forget it. How the hell'd you make money?"

"We're government subsidised. It's part of a citywide magic legislation bill. Magical items, spells and weapons are all controlled by the government, I'm afraid."

"Draw points? You must have those."

"They're licensed."

"How'd you get one?"

"You'd have to apply for permission." The shopkeeper looked Seifer up and down. "Esthar citizens only, I'm afraid."

"Oh, fuck you, then." Seifer told him, and left.

The remainder of his day was similarly disappointing. Seifer wasn't too bothered about the magic, but the items were a pain. The whole thing about magic was that with a lot of patience, self-discipline and training you could reach the point where it was almost an acceptable substitute for a really big gun.

Seifer, bored, used Odine's card to buy a load of crap, just for the hell of it, went back to the laboratory and dumped most of it into the recycler. He slept and was tired the next morning, craving coffee.

Odine, in contrast, was bright-eyed and enthusiastic. He had dispensed with his pad of paper and looked delighted at Seifer's dishevelled appearance. "Let uz talk."

"What about?" Seifer asked, warily.

"What do you vant to talk about? For example, what do you think of our beautiful city?"

Seifer decided not to dispute the 'beautiful. 'From the look on his face, Odine adored Esthar. He'd probably helped design it.

"It's okay, I guess. Except for the people."

"What about uz?"

Seifer let his disdain for the Estharians trickle into his speech. "Fucking xenophobes, man. City people. Not tough. You might be clever, but you're not smart."

"And what do you mean by zat?"

"You don't care about anything I do. Inside your walls, it's like another world -and most people don't even dare leave. And if they did, a monster'd be picking them out of its teeth five minutes later. Say whatever you like about SeeDs-we're the only people who've got any freedom in this fucking place."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know."

"Ah. You think yourself superior."

"No, I just think you're wankers. Look, cut the crap. What do you want you talk about? What're you getting at, here?"

"I am researching the magic of the sorceresses." Odine said. "Over the years, I have published certain hypotheses about their Knights. It will be fascinating to discover if these are indeed the case."

"So you just want my mind. Assuming I have one."

Odine shrugged. "I study ze sorceresses. A fact: sorceresses are ze only people who can cast magic without drawing. They are natural generators. And zey are capable of great destructive forces. Like your Edea, yes?"

The casual comment stung a nerve. "That wasn't Edea." Seifer said. "It was Ultimecia."

"Yes, vell, it iz not important at ziz stage." Odine told him. "You were a SeeD, yes? Do you junction magic?"

"Not now," Seifer said, "but yeah"

"Typical. That they would waste magic in such a way."

"You're an asshole."

"Edea did not talk to me in such a way." Odine said. He scribbled on a stray piece of paper, his eye glinting behind his spectacles. "She vas most…interesting to converse with. I learned much of ze Sorceresses with her help. Very…pliant. Informative."

"Well, she's not here right now. And I am. So if you've got questions to ask, ask them and let me get the fuck out of here. I need coffee."

Odine made another mark on the paper, as if noting Seifer's belligerent and unco-operative attitude. "She told me much about you."

"She didn't talk about _you_. Wonder why?"

The scientist smiled confidently. "This could be her memory, yes? Edea is very informative, but still damaged. You must co-operate, -so I can fix her, yes." he added, a gleam in his dark eyes, blood-shot from peering over bubbling flasks.

Seifer subsided. He picked at the table's laminated edge with bitten nails, said nothing.

"Let us change ze subject. Now, do you know how vas Centra destroyed?"

"The Lunar Cry." Seifer said. "Everyone knows that."

"And yet we had one only two years ago, and here we are still standing." Odine said scornfully. "I hav hypothesized that ze destruction of Centra was linked to a magical cataclysm which occurred approximately the same time as ze Lunar Cry hit. Zis was ze origin of ze draw points you SeeDs are so proud of. This may have been linked to a sorceress. Zey are very dangerous things. In a way, allying yourself with ze sorceress during ze wars was very sensible. If Ultimecia had managed to compress time, by serving her you would probably add as much as five years to your life expectancy. Of course, time vould not really mean much. According to my calculations, it vould either feel like a fraction of a second, or an eternity."

"Your calculations suck."

"It might not feel like a life, either. But enough with ze theorising. I doubt you have the intellect to understand. This iz advanced brain surgery, not rocket science."

"Fuck you."

"Please moderate your language." Odine told him. "Now, let us continue."

The tests were brief and not unpleasant, but they made Seifer uneasy. He donated a sample of his blood, dripping red and thick into a vacutainer, and lay back into a donut-shaped machine to have his brain scanned. Odine hunched over a computer, calibrating readouts, and refused all Seifer's questions. The base of the scanner was hard under his spine, the smell of disinfectant bitter.

But it wasn't until he'd left, and wandered back in, pretending to be lost as an excuse to check the place out, that Odine really disturbed him.

Seifer had a soldier's respect for corpses. You burned or buried them, took the things they couldn't use to help the living stay that way and thanked Hyne it wasn't you. Soldiers didn't mess with the dead. They got screwed enough when they were alive. So when he opened one of the doors in the main laboratory to find Odine in the middle of an autopsy, Seifer almost closed it and went away again.

He didn't. Instead he drew nearer, fascinated. The body lay on a stainless steel table, slanted slightly inwards to catch spillages. Fluid dripped slowly from a hole cut in the centre of the table to a grille set in the floor.

"Have a look." Odine grunted, a scalpel between his teeth. His body hid the corpse's face from Seifer.

There was surprisingly little blood, and no smell. Intestines spilled from a slash cut throat to belly, detouring round in a neat circle to avoid the navel. He reached out to touch the guts and his finger sank in up to the knuckle. The movement brought his face closer to the corpse, under the extractor hood which covered the table. The smell of death and corruption was faint, but still present.

"It's what, a day old?"

"Eighteen hours."

Seifer had seen corpses in and after battle, killed by monsters and men. This was stranger, different somehow, more clinical, colder. He wasn't sure he liked it.

"What do you do with this shit?"

"I use it for my researches. Very valuable. Nothing iz wasted."

"So what're you researching?"

Odine moved aside. He clutched a tape measure in one hand and a plastic disposable scalpel in the other. Seifer saw that the head of the corpse had been clinically removed. It sat upright on the table, facing away from him. A neat cut had been made from forehead to the base of the skull, and the brain sat in the hollow skull like a hard-boiled egg in a cup. Seifer swallowed, nauseous. The image of Odine, his outlandish clothes covered with a white coat, hunched ghoulishly over an opened skull, was a vision he was sure would be engraved into his memory till the day he died.

"I research brains. Their anatomy, function, regions, activity. To do this it iz necessary to have normal specimens to compare." He pointed to a couple of scans printed on transparent plastic. "See, this iz a scan of this brain." He jabbed down at the corpse, "taken shortly after death. Notice the absence of activity. This is a scan of ze sorceress Edea's brain, taken three months previously. Notice the activity in the cortical regions."

"You scanned her _brain_?"

Odine took a third scan from the desktop and pinned it up beside the second. His gloved fingers left greasy marks on the plastic. "And this iz your brain. Notice the similarities with Edea's. Substantially more activity in the limbic system, which iz ze area controlling emotions."

"You what?"

"I am comparing the gross anatomy of this dead specimen you see before you with the scans. There are a number of abnormalities which I find most interesting, but sadly I will not have the opportunity to measure, hem, these in situ-"

"You want to-"

"owing to the-"

"-hack open her brain?"

"-recalcitrant nature of many of my subjects and ze delicate nature of the tissues involved."

Seifer had the sudden urge to grab the small scientist by the back of his head and slam him face-first in his own research material. "If you think you're cutting up her brain, you fucking butcher, you've got another think coming!"

"It is merely research."

"Like hell it is."

"I am simply trying to help your sorceress Edea's recovery."

"No you're not. If she's cured there won't be anything for you to study."

"I assure you-"

"Bollocks. Go study something else." Seifer snapped. He drew back from the corpse with sudden revulsion. Odine pulled out a tape-measure from his lab coat pockets and started to measure the disembodied skull.

"I have my own interest in this particular area of research."

"Get disinterested. Fast."

"You are free to leave at any time." Odine said slyly

"You know I won't."

"Please be silent. You are interrupting my measurements. They are very delicate and must not be inaccurate."

"Fuck your measurements." Seifer snapped. He left and continued his unauthorised and self-guided tour of Odine's research premises, feeling uneasy. After a while he returned to his room and stayed there, fooling around with the computer, worrying about Edea and doing his best not to think about Odine's questions. Jealously imagining Quistis imagining her entertaining the entire graduating class, one on one and then all together. He told himself that she'd be seeing someone else by now, but he knew that she wouldn't.

But..hang on a minute..that didn't mean that _he_ couldn't. Not at all.

And so it was that Seifer decided to exorcise Quistis's ghost by going out and getting laid. There were women in Esthar, right? No problem. He showered, shaved and switched on his most charming smile.

_Self-esteem problem my ass. I can't have a self-esteem problem when I'm just this perfect._

Two hours later he was feeling much less confident.

"I've been drinking for years!"

"That is not my concern, sir. Perhaps sir would like to order a non-alcoholic beverage?"

"That shit." Seifer told him "-is for pussies."

"Maybe so, sir, but in Esthar City persons under the age of twenty-one are not permitted to purchase alcohol."

"Do I look like I'm under twenty-one?" Seifer snarled. The answer, he knew was 'no'. Unfortunately, it was also inaccurate. He had not remembered that the legal drinking age in Esthar was twenty-one, five months older than he was; though 'forgotten' was perhaps the wrong word, as he'd never bothered to check in the first place. The plastic credit card Odine had handed him contained electronic data as well as virtual money, and worse, it was accurate.

"Your ID says that you are twenty." the barman told him. "So no drink."

"One drink?"

"_No_, sir."

The bartender, who considered Seifer incredibly rude, never realised just how lucky he was when the ex-knight gave up and bought an orange juice.

And that was just the start.

It was true that finding women was no problem in Esthar. All of them were immaculately dressed and some of them were very beautiful, if slightly too polished for Seifer's tastes. And every single one of them smiled politely, refused his offer of a drink, and then spent the rest of the night playing with their wedding rings or talking loudly to their boyfriends.

Seifer was just about to give up and go home when a girl took the barstool next to him, smiled brightly at the barman and ordered a large glass of something pink and bubbly. Seifer hardly noticed at the time, he was half way down his fifth orange juice and wondering whether it was possible to brew anything alcoholic out of pot plants and rubbing alcohol. He seemed to remember that you could distill alcohol from desert cacti, but the Estharians hadn't invented a machine to do _that. _Typical, Seifer thought glumly. They'd invented everything else except for something useful.

He glanced at the girl out of the corner of his eye as she sipped her drink with every appearance of enjoyment. It didn't look alcoholic, but the Estharians seemed to delight in false advertising. The bar's extensive range of non-alcoholic juices came in little glasses and looked like cocktails, and the girls all wore slinky robes with holes cut out , but wouldn't -

The girl noticed his interest and smiled-he hadn't been trying too hard not to look. "Hey."

"Yeah." Seifer said. He couldn't be bothered to make a play for it; it had been a long evening and his luck couldn't get much worse. "Hey. What you drinking?"

"A beer. Estharian, of course."

"Figures." Seifer said, glumly. "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and a train line. Helps if you've got some kind of a card league, or hardcore weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. Anyway, I bet it's fucking horrible."

The girl smiled; a real smile that showed all her teeth. It was a nice smile, Seifer decided, and would be worth getting to know more intimately. "It's actually quite pleasant."

Seifer tilted his chin in his hands. He drank his orange juice, looked at the girl more closely. He liked what he saw. "You from here?" he said. "You don't act like it." It was true. The Estharian girls had run a mile when he'd tried to talk to them, and he hadn't even used any bad language.

Her lips curved in a smile. "That's because I'm not Estharian."

"So where're you from?" Seifer asked. Her smile deepened.

"I'm from Dollet."

"Dollet, huh? That's a long way."

The girl stirred her drink with a long striped straw. She held it with the very tips of her nails, handling it as if her nail polish was still drying. "It is, quite. I work here, though."

"What'd you do?"

"I'm an ambassador." the girl from Dollet said, with a smile. She shivered and pulled her flimsy wrap more closely about her shoulders. It was blue, and knitted from fluffy wool. Seifer raised an eyebrow. She looked about his own age; twenty one, maybe, since she was drinking. Twenty- two, perhaps. "Aren't you a bit young to be an ambassador?"

She smiled secretly at him. "Aren't you a bit young to be a soldier?"

"I never told you I was a soldier." Seifer said suspiciously. He glanced around the bar, in case any Galbadian soldiers decided to appear. They didn't, and he relaxed.

"You didn't have to. I grew up with soldiers. That's how I know." She stirred her drink again. "So, what's a soldier doing in a pacifistic place like Esthar?"

Seifer finished his orange juice. He considered ordering another, and decided to wait, curling the nicotine-stained pads of his fingers into his palms. "I'm working for Odine."

She reached up to tuck a shiny lock of dark hair into place. Pins sparkled brightly behind her ears. "Really? You don't look the type."

"I'm not the type. I'm, oh, never mind why I'm here. Let's talk about you. Where're you from? Originally?"

The girl rested her elbow on the table. She tilted her head sideways and slid her chin into the palm of her hand. "Oh, a little town nobody's ever heard of. I have family living in Esthar. My father. I've relatives in Balamb, too. The embassy's close to them and I enjoy my job."

"Balamb?"

She smiled. "Yes. A brother. He doesn't write much, though."

Seifer thought it unlikely that he would know any of her relatives, at least not in a pleasant way. "What's he do?"

"He's in the military. Administration. You might know him."

"Sure." Seifer said. "What's his name?"

"Squall." she told him. "Squall Leonhart."

* * *

Can't write. Busy.

Breaker-one: I don't know Olivia Hussey? What was she in? I think if there ever was movie, it'd have to be CG.

Ghost140: Ta.

Jack Hanek: The 'tried everything else to sort my head out' is mine, thought I do tend to steal quotes. Lots.

Kjata: I like fight scenes. RTS worked out more dialogue-orientated than I originally planned, although there's still some big action-y bits coming up. The fst community rules. I loiter, as I haven't worked out how to work my lj account yet.

Quistis88:Ta

Seventhe: Wow, you play in a band? What sort of music?

Stormee: Wow, you must have a lot of free time! Those things are long! Glad you enjoyed them, though.

ThistleDemon: Oh, yes, Going Postal, and the throwing-out-of-a-window bit. I'd never do something like that if I was writing anything serious, but hey, it's fanfiction, and it's supposed to be fun. Squall is 'heavily inspired' by Vetinari.

Sulou: hope you liked this chapter, then.


	14. Chapter Thirteen:In Your Head

Recovering The Satellites

Have you come here for forgiveness?

Have you come to raise the dead?

Have you come here to play Jesus

To the lepers in your head?

U2: One

Chapter Thirteen: In Your Head.

* * *

Seifer looked carefully around at the restaurant, just in case it was some kind of set-up. A few patrons returned his curious gaze, but most of them ignored him. None of them wore weapons belted over their robes, none of them wore body armour. "Fuck." he said at last. "So that's where I know you from. You're Ellone. You're Squall's sister."

Ellone tucked her feet under her high stool. She balanced her hand on her chin and smiled at him. The smile looked suspiciously like one he'd seen many times on her brother's face. He could see the resemblance, now he was looking for it, somewhere in between the pointed chin and the dusty brown hair. "Yes." she said, calmly. " It's been a while, Seifer."

Seifer pushed away his orange juice. "Sure has."

Ellone pressed her lips together and smiled at him, smoothing her skirt. "Aren't you going to invite me back?"

Seifer shrugged. "Forget it." He might as well take a loaded gun to bed as Squall's sister, the result would be the same in the long term, and that was just if her brother got to hear of it. If Ellone was anything like Squall, she was smart. Too smart to sleep with Seifer; although that hadn't stopped Quistis.

Ellone's smile did not falter as she drank from her own glass, leaving a tiny smear of lipstick on the brim. In stark contrast to the Estharians, and most of the SeeDs he'd met since the wars, she seemed totally at ease in Seifer's company. He wondered whether it was something being an ambassador taught you, or whether it was just Ellone. She had always had a calm, unflappable air about her, even when they had all been children, scuffling and fighting on the Centra beaches.

"So you're a SeeD now?" she asked him.

"Not quite."

"You left?"

Seifer wondered how to explain things to her. "Sort of."

Ellone's smile faded. A flick of one finger brought the bartender to her. She ordered two drinks, paid with money from a tiny purse sewn into her skirt, and slid one across the table to Seifer. The bar was quieter now, the crowds of robed Estharians at the tables thinning out. Faint music drifted from behind the bar, audible for the first time, an instrumental heavy on acoustic guitars. It wasn't Seifer's kind of thing, but he was beginning to realise that nothing in Esthar was. He stirred the beer with the straw from his previous drink, checking for sediment.

Ellone shifted on her tall stool. "I heard about the wars." she told him, quietly.

"Everyone heard about the wars." Seifer said. "I heard _you_ were in the wars."

Ellone shrugged, a smooth movement that almost sent her shawl slithering from her shoulders. Like all of her clothes, it was plain in a very severe well cut way that doubtless cost a great deal of money and didn't show nearly enough skin for Seifer's liking. "So you left. What next?"

Seifer interpreted the casual comment as _what are you doing here? _Maybe he was wrong, but he couldn't blame Ellone for being protective of her adopted city. Esthar had suffered pretty badly in the Lunar Cry, although the city itself had been free of monsters for nearly two years. And the Lunar Cry, like pretty much everything else at the time, appeared to have been Seifer's fault. "Came here from Centra. Went to visit Edea."

"Is she okay?"

Seifer took a large gulp of beer before he answered. It was cool and light, strangely flavoured but no worse than any of the cocktails he'd drunk at student parties. "You could go and find out for yourself. Wouldn't hurt."

"I have." Ellone said. I was being polite." She swept her hair back from her forehead, a gesture that made him think she was more tired than she was letting on, and grinned at him, Squall's sharp triangular smile.

"Well, anyway, seems like a hell of a lot of people've been ignoring her instead of doing something about it. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna find some way to make her all right. Cure her." It sounded hollow, even to Seifer. Maybe he'd meant it, before he'd seen all of Odine's machines. Maybe he still did.

"A little ambitious." Ellone commented, noncommittally. Her voice was cool and cautious.

"That's me." Seifer told her. He tilted the glass, wondering if it was worthwhile to finish his beer. There was an unpleasant aftertaste that got sweeter the more you drank, honey or something. Nasty, but free. He pushed the glass away.

"Do you know _anything_ about Odine's research?"

Seifer was getting very tired of that incredulous tone of voice. "No. Odine's interested in me, that's all. Sorceresses, that kind of thing. I'm not crazy about it, but I'll live."

"So how is Odine going to help you cure Edea?" Ellone asked pragmatically.

"You don't think I know what the fuck I'm doing? I know what I'm doing." Seifer said automatically. "Or not." he added. He started at his drink, and drank it.

"If he wanted to help Edea, he would have done it by now."

"I know that. But I need to make him admit that she's fine."

"Maybe she's not." _Maybe you're not_, said the undercurrents in her voice.

"He's hiding something."

"People like Odine always hide things." Ellone said. "He's dangerous." Her clear grey eyes did not judge him; they looked at him seriously, weighing up the evidence in a way that reminded Seifer of Quistis. Ellone looked nothing like Quistis; her forehead was wider, her mouth smaller, and her hair was the wrong colour, but there was something in her air of ferocious intelligence that told Seifer that this was a woman who was very much in control. One of his favourite things to do with Quistis had been make her lose it…

"Are you okay?"

Seifer pulled himself away from a daydream of tangled sheets and tousled locks of blond hair. "Just tired."

"Edea?"

"Yeah. Edea. I reckon she's got so many people telling her she's not normal she can't convince herself she is. I need something to prove she's not fucked up by this sorceress thing. She's just ill. Got that sickness you get from too much fighting."

"How'd you know?"

Seifer turned his head slightly to glare at Ellone through narrowed eyes. Her clear confident gaze made him feel very rough and very awkward. He leant forwards on the table, resting one hand casually on his forehead to cover the scar between his eyes. "Just do."

Ellone said nothing, just lifted her shoulder in an elegant shrug.

"Okay, I don't. Not for sure. But I need to find something. If there _is_ nothing, if Odine's been telling the truth all along then she's fucked up for the rest of her life from this thing, from the wars, and that's kind of my fault. It's easier if there's something to fix. For her, and for me." It was honesty, of a sort. "I just…don't know." he admitted, quietly.

Ellone tapped her nails on the bartop as the barman came to collect the empty glasses, but didn't order more. "If there really is-then how are you ever going to find it?"

"I'll figure it out."

Ellone gave him a doubtful look and pulled her shawl closely around her. "May I help?" The bar manager had dimmed the lights, no doubt hoping to encourage the few remaining patrons to leave. The shadowy gloom made Ellone appear younger and rather insecure. She picked at the long silky fringe of her shawl with the tips of her nails, combing strands out and braiding them back into tiny plaits.

Seifer shifted on his stool, the hard plastic seat suddenly uncomfortable. "Help with what?"

Ellone looked down at her hands in her lap. "I could …take you back. To the past. If you wanted. You can find out things from the past you never knew. With what you've learned, you can see things differently in the present." She raised her head and looked at him, jewelled pins glinting in her hair, her grey eyes clear and honest

The concept interested Seifer, but sounded far too like sorceress-magic for his tastes. "No limits?"

"Yes. Everything has limits. I can only send people I know now back into people I knew in the past. I knew you, Seifer. I could do the same for you."

"No." Seifer said automatically, without thinking. Ellone's jaw firmed and she looked more than a little put out, so he temporised. "Thanks, but no. You can't change anything? No use, then."

Ellone sighed. She seemed slightly relieved, but that didn't stop her trying to talk him into it. "You're the one who changes. Not the past. In your case, I think it might be a good idea."

"Will it help Edea?"

"It might help _you_."

Seifer decided that the last thing he wanted, or needed, was assistance from Squall's sister. He avoided her eyes, counting the bottles lined up behind the bar. "I don't need help. Look, thanks for the offer, and the drink, but no, all right? If you can't change anything, then I'm not going. I don't need to see all that again." Cowardly, maybe, but true. He could feel her looking at him, but didn't turn to meet her gaze. Instead he heard a rustle of silky shawl as she hunted in her purse.

"Suit yourself. If I can help in any other way or if you change your mind, then come and see me." She slid a pasteboard card across the bar. "The Dollet embassy is a small one, but connections can sometimes be helpful."

"I don't need help from that asshole, either." Seifer told her, but he took the card anyway.

Ellone's head came up. She glared at him in the semi-darkness, one hand reaching up to adjust the pins in her hair. Her fingers flicked impatiently, as if she wanted to pull one out and stab it into Seifer. "He's _not_ an asshole."

"You would say that. You're his sister." He stuffed the business card into a pocket. It was plain and white, with a small Dollet crest and Ellone's number written underneath in curving script.

Ellone sighed again, as if she hadn't expected anything more. She hadn't expected him to take up her offer, Seifer realised, and she was relieved about it. "I need to go. It's late. Take care of yourself. For old times'.sake, if nothing else. You have my number, if you need to get in touch. Reasonable hours, only, please, or a very good reason." She tucked her skirt under her and climbed down from the stool. Standing, she was even shorter than Quistis, with Squall's spare build and his confident way of holding himself.

Seifer glanced at his own watch. It was late, but not really late. "See you, yeah? If you ever really want to piss Squall off, you know where to find me."

"Yes," she said, "but no." The corners of her mouth twisted, as if holding back a smile.

"Thanks for the drink."

Ellone really did smile, then. "Don't mention it." she said, and left.

Seifer walked slowly back to the laboratory a little later. The desert night was hot and dry, the sky an unearthly electric blue that promised dawn in a few hours. Esthar was almost beautiful in the dark, and the transparent walkways were much less noticeable.

Seifer dawdled, smoking in the concealing dark and reluctant to return to the lab. He leant on a railing and looked out over the city to the dark desert, imagining the FH bridge in the distance, and beyond that, Balamb. A faint wind stirred his hair and blew the smoke from his cigarette away over his shoulder. Ellone's beer was sweet at the back of his throat and he spat over the side of the walkway, trying to erase the taste.

Ellone.

Seifer sighed and leant his elbows on the railing. The city spread out below him in dull neon, every street and building outlined in lights and glass. Ellone. He wished she hadn't been there, hadn't seen him, hadn't offered. He remembered Squall mentioning something like that, or maybe Quistis. Ellone had sent them back to Squall's father, in the first war.

Seifer snorted. He stretched and told himself he didn't need help, didn't need sorceresses, or whatever Ellone was. His conscience hissed _coward_, but he ignored it, and turned his attention to the sky.

The constellations were clearer in the city, with all the light pollution. The major stars stood out well. In Centra, or remote little Balamb, the sky was so speckled that stars got in the way of other stars and it looked like somebody had sprinkled salt over the night sky. Trabia had been even worse. Garden taught that it was easy to navigate using the night sky. All you had to do was find the brightest star in the constellation of the Triangle, which pointed due south, and travel accordingly. None of the lecturers had told you what to do when all the stars looked like the Triangle. Hyne, he was glad to be back in the civilised world, where they had maps. Maps, and beer.

The stars wheeled overhead, desert-bright and clear as diamonds. Seifer sighed, pushed off from the railings, and tilted his head back. There was a large dark patch of the sky, devoid of stars, right over his head, and his cigarette paused on its trip to his mouth.

It had been two years since that star had fallen. It had been ruby red, and man-made. Adel's tomb.

_Things could always have been worse_, he thought grimly. _Edea could have turned out like Adel. _

He slept well, and didn't dream.

* * *

Date: Friday 29th July 1519 11.24.08 -01100(PDT)

From: "_s almasy" sa1694balamb_.

To: "_z dincht" zd901balamb_.

Re: hows things

It's weird here. haven't found much to help with Edea. Odine's an asshole but you knew that already. Esthar City's full of shit they dont even let you drink properly don't know what it was like in the wars but not impressed. Tell Edea im trying this may take time.tell her I hope she's all right.

Met Ellone the other day didn't know she was in Esthar –did you? she seemed okay, annoying just like squall but think she's happy. Haven't met Leonhart's asshole dad yet but it's only a matter of time.

any news?

S

PS is quistis back yet?

Seifer reviewed his message. His grammar wasn't the best and the helpful Estharian spell-checking software festooned the brief letter with red and green squiggles, but Zell would understand.

He hit the Send button and turned to leave for the lab. The computer beeped at him, a soft, urgent sound. Seifer swung round irritably, thinking _what now? _His conversation with Ellone the previous night had not left him in the best of moods. He was late and hungry.

The cursor flashed green.

_Incoming message._

He hit the Read Mail button. The Estharian keyboard had taken some getting used to, the keys littered with weird ciphers and abbreviation, but he was learning, and was pretty sure he'd soon find it easy to be as incoherent in the Estharian word processing and network packages as he was in the Garden ones.

Date: Friday 29th July 1519 11.27.15 -01100(PDT)

From: MESSAGE PROCESSING ERRROR

To: "s_ almasy" sa1694balamb_.

regret to inform you that the message '_hows_ _things?_' has not been sent. Please check your service provider or adjust your email settings.

Text of original message follows……

_Hey zell……_

Seifer swore, thumped the Send button a few more times and abandoned the task. He'd mail Zell later. There were still no messages in his inbox, which surprised him. It wasn't like Squall not to check up on him. Maybe Leonhart was busy, or maybe he'd decided he had better things to do than pester Seifer. It suited Seifer fine. He'd made exactly zero progress, and things weren't looking good.

He grabbed the borrowed lab coat from its hook on the back of the door, and left.

The day's tests were lengthy, even by Odine's standards, but only moderately painful. Seifer was beginning to get used to the machines. There was the one which looked like a giant donut, the one on tracks which hung down from the ceiling and the one that scrawled jagged lines on reams of printout paper. Seifer could recognise them now, but he was no closer to understanding their purpose. Odine was bad at explaining, and Seifer had always been bad at listening. It wasn't until they were almost finished that he remembered about the message.

"Your computer's not working." Seifer yanked his shirt over his head. It smelt of surgical spirit and iodine.

Odine grunted and dropped a glob of blood into a vial of clear fluid. He watched it closely as it floated to the bottom, then looked up. "Really? Which one iz it?"

"The one in my room." Seifer told him. "Can't send mail to Balamb." He inspected a bruise on his arm with interest. "You've gotta stop the needles. It's not healthy."

Odine poked at the vial with a pair of long mosquito-nosed forceps. "Zat iz nonsence. I use only ze most scientific methods, and besides, you can lose a whole pint of blood before you commence to show any ill effects."

Seifer knew Odine well enough by now to realise that he had lost that match point. "The mail?" he prompted.

Odine waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, zat iz nothing new. I know."

Seifer poked a finger at one of the healthy vinelike plants littering Odine's office. It was populated by several glittering and sizeable insects. One of them snapped at him and Seifer withdrew his hand. "You know?"

"It iz imperative that you are not distracted by outside interference." Odine said sternly. He removed his spectacles, wiped them on his greasy overall and replaced them on his nose. "So, no mail, terrestrial or electronic, iz allowed for you within ze laboratory. One ov my conditions."

"I didn't agree-"

"You are here, are you not? And if you have nothing to hide, which surely you have not, why would you object?"

Seifer shrugged. "Fine." He brushed one hand over the plant, teasing the insects. They jumped as his hand passed overhead in a tiny Galbadian wave. "I'll just go use one somewhere else. You've got libraries?"

Odine slapped a translucent X-ray film onto the viewer. He studied it carefully, flicking through a large book as he did so. The pages were stained with tea and other fluids. Finally he marked one page with a stubby finger and peered up at Seifer over his spectacles. "We do indeed hav such facilities. Unfortunately zey are only available for use by permanent residents."

"No offence, Odine, but how will the guys working there know?"

Odine returned to his book. "You hav your identification card, yes? Zis is Esthar. Persons without identification are not permitted within ze city."

Seifer's hand stilled as he considered this new development. Several of the larger insects launched themselves from the fronds of the plant and attacked his fingers. Seifer cursed. He flicked one onto the floor with a swipe of his wrist and ground the heel of his boot over it until nothing was left other than a greasy green stain. He scraped the remaining insects off against a plant pot, snagged a wedge of cotton wool from one of the many pots littering Odine's workbench to clean blood from his fingers. "So I can't communicate with Garden?"

"Zat iz not my problem." Odine said evenly. He reached for another book from his laden shelves without looking at Seifer. The ex-knight slammed one hand down on the leather cover of the first book, neatly entrapping Odine's left hand between the pages. The scientist looked owlishly at him over the metal rims of his spectacles.

"Please, desist."

Seifer leant more of his weight on the book. Odine frowned, but didn't seem in the least intimidated. "What else can't I do? Can I leave?"

"Stop. You are bleeding on ze pages. Ze book iz rare, and very expensive. It is-"

Seifer grabbed a new ball of cotton wool and released the scientist. "Okay. Just answer my fucking question."

Odine blinked. He flicked a few pages and grabbed a rag from a medical table, dabbing tiny red spots from the parchment. "You may leave zis building, yes. But not ze city. You do not have ze right papers. Ze customs officials will not allow you to go." He looked up at Seifer with cunning dark eyes, beady as coal. "Again, no fault of mine."

_Maybe not, but you're loving this. _Seifer thought. He chewed on a nail and tasted nicotine. The identification card Odine had given him, acting as both money and documentation. No cash, no legal papers, no SeeD pass of any kind. Closed circuit television, private security guards, passwords; a whole paper trail of bureaucracy. "Fuck."

Odine shrugged. Seifer got the feeling he was hiding a smile.

"Fuck you." he told him.

"Please to control language within my laboratories."

"Shut the hell up." Seifer snarled, and made for the door.

He headed straight to the security guards' off duty rest room, aware that his illicit gambling was about to take on a new urgency. The guards had been fairly welcoming, as soon as they'd realised that Seifer hadn't been involved with the SeeD infiltration of Esthar during the second war, although Seifer's status as unofficial lab rat and his nationality made him the butt of a certain amount of good-natured teasing. He'd played a few more hands of Triple Triad with them since arriving, and they were all right. More to the point, none of them would last more then five seconds against a pack of Creeps, and Seifer was beginning to realise that this might be to his advantage in the long term.

His appearance in the tiny room was greeted with a chorus of jeers and a flurry of untranslatable comments in Estharian.

"Look who's here. Odine's favourite experiment!"

"Back alone?"

"Fuck off." Seifer told them all. He elbowed a few Estharians out of the way for a seat around the tiny table. The guardroom was like every other one he'd ever been in, except that there was less smoke, the weapons were different and the posters of half-naked girls wore cut-down robes instead of bikinis.

"Looked bad coming back last night, SeeD. Get turned down?"

"Never mind- some other time. "

"Drop it, Flex. You too, Boq. I'm not in the mood. And that goes to all the rest of you assholes who think you're funny."

"Don't worry. Estharian girls don't usually go for foreigners."

"Go all night for us, though."

"Speak for yourself. When was the last time you talked to a girl?"

"I speak to all sorts of women!"

"Yeah, but those services usually charge premium rates. No wonder you always play for shitty stakes."

"In the mood for gambling, are you?"

"Might as well."

"It'll be a shame to take your money."

"Won't stop us from doing it, though."

"I'd like to see you bunch of amateurs try." Seifer told them all, and reached for the cards in his pocket. He played badly, and not on purpose, thoughts racing through his mind as swiftly and as chaotically as a pack of fleeing Chocobos.

_This city's a fucking crappy place to hide in, better hope I don't need to. Ellone warned me about Odine, but she didn't say anything about this.._

_The letters…..Ellone…._

_That might work._

He called off the game after a few hours, having played badly enough to be popular but not badly enough to lose any real money, and prowled the deserted labs, in the mood for something old and unopened. Odine had assumed his research subject had missed the stash of expensive Western Isles whisky in the drawer under his desk, kept for important patrons. Seifer hadn't. He decanted the bottle into a couple of plastic flasks, and filled it up with amber toilet cleaner so it would look as if it was still full. It was thick and smoky, much better that most things he'd tasted before.

Seifer drank the first flask carelessly fast and fell asleep sometime between two and three in the morning, right in the middle of a one-triad card game against himself. He slept well, by his own standards, nearly seven hours with one brief break where he fell off the chair, face-first into his cards, and crawled into bed. He woke the next morning and threw an arm over his eyes, blessing the lab's absence of natural light and cursing everything else.

_Damn, why do I do this? _he thought half-heartedly, and answered his own question in the same breath. _Hell knows._

He reached for the glass of water beside his bed, closed his hand around it, cursed again as the slick glass almost slid out of his grip and almost choked himself with the water before attempting to sit up. Even his joints hurt, the sign of a really successful hangover. Seifer had _experience_ with hangovers. Hyne did he have experience.

In the old days at Garden he'd go down to the infirmary and try to persuade Dr Kadowaki to put him on a drip. It had worked once, and once only. In the Trabian city he'd compensated with a lukewarm shower and he'd never had to get up for anything in the first place, so lying in bed all day was a perfectly reasonable alternative. With Quistis, he'd rarely gone past the 'comfortably optimistic' stage, so hangover cures had never been an issue.

His grip slipped and the glass slid out of his hand, spilling onto the lab-issue cotton sheets. His mouth was dry, and tasted unpleasant. Even the hum of the air conditioning was too loud. He closed his eyes on the nuclear explosion in his skull, and threw a fold of sheet over his head.

Some time later-he wasn't sure how later because time had taken on that elastic quality it got with a hangover, concussion or really good sex-Seifer recovered enough to open his eyes. He fixed on the stretch of blank wall above his bed as a peacefully bland alternative, and lay extremely still.

_Urgh._

The wall was featureless and easy on his bloodshot eyes. The only defects in its surface were a large dent where Seifer had forgotten that he was practising with Hyperion in a small space and slammed the point of the gunblade into the plaster, and a large insect making its way slowly across the paint. Seifer knew that he should get up and swat it aside before it reached his head, but he really couldn't be bothered to move. Moving hurt too much.

Thankfully the bug seemed disinclined to venture closer. It settled about a metre above Seifer's prone body, wings whirring quietly. It was still there a couple of hours later, when Seifer woke up properly and decided that he was too hungry to stay in bed any longer. He'd heard the lab assistants moan about the cafeteria food but compared to Balamb, it was bliss. Living in the desert didn't seem to be much of a problem for the Estharian cooks. Seifer didn't know where the food came from, but he was glad it did.

_Maybe I'll catch breakfast_. He risked a glance at the clock, turning his head oh-so-slowly. _Or lunch, maybe. If I hurry._

He rolled out of bed and knelt down by his kitbag, hunching against the pain in his head, knees cold against the clean lino. The bug was still whirring its odd little sound Seifer slammed one hand against the wall, hoping it would fall off. It didn't; but the impact made his teeth ache, and _that_ set up chain reactions in his skull, and he almost ruined his only clean shirt by throwing up into his bag.

"Hell, _shit_." he grated, once the nausea had passed, and reached for a glass of water without bothering to stand up. The washbasin rim was tall, above eye-level with Seifer slumped on the floor, so it took him a couple of tries to locate the glass and a another four to pour enough water into it to make it worth drinking, his hands soaked to the wrist, droplets of water running cool and pleasant down his arms and pooling on the floor.

The top shirt was ragged and dark green. Seifer threw it on the bed. There was shower gel in the bag somewhere, stolen from the Garden's stores, and a razor. Or maybe he'd left that on the sink. Fuck knew.

As he searched, his hand brushed against the mouse-killer machine, reminding Seifer that he hadn't left it with Edea like he'd planned, and the thing whirred into life. It extended spindly spider-limbs. A kaleidoscope of coloured lights danced around its metal carapace and blinked out.

Seifer pushed the tiny machine aside as his hand closed on a can of shaving foam, and it crawled delicately out of the bag. It looked more decisive than Seifer felt, so he left it. Right at the bottom of the bag was the last of his Hi-potions, rolled inside a pair of threadbare socks out of the Customs guards' reach. Seifer unrolled it, flipped the cap, and drank it. The liquid was sugary, with a faint aniseed tang like absinthe. Seifer's headache intensified. He dropped the empty bottle on the floor next to his bag and dragged himself back into bed.

He woke up at half past two, not that long after falling asleep; thought about time and beaches, and stared at the ceiling. The bug had disappeared and the room was quiet. He shifted, the mattress complaining under him, and as he did so something dropped with a metallic clatter from his chest to the fold of the sheets. Seifer shoved his right hand under his pillow to catch the hilt of the knife taped there, more out of habit than anything else, and sifted his other hand through the folds of cotton, collecting as he did so, a dozen tiny, light objects, the size of watch-cogs or the smallest of monster bones. He used the point of his knife to pick through them. Tiny metallic parts, a veined wing, impossibly small, the remains of a multifaceted eye carved from crystal, improbably fine wires of hair-thickness and adamantine strength.

He cast a cautious eye up at the ceiling, in case anything delicate and electronic there had decided to die during the night.

Nothing.

_Huh. _

There was a tiny noise from the side of the bed and his machine surfaced, the remains of a struggling fly in its tiny mechanical jaws. One leg twitched feebly, and expired in a spray of blue sparks that smoked on the floor and burned tiny holes in the sheets' corner. It took Seifer maybe two seconds to guess where the parts on his bed had come from.

_Rat-killer._ _Hn._

The captured bug was more or less intact. Seifer switched on the bedside light and deposited the creature underneath it, poking through the remains. Close up, it looked robotic, Estharian, and skilled. What looked like a tiny microphone poked out through a hole in the bug's belly. It made Seifer's skin chill and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up with a fine prickling.

_Surveillance, _he thought, and muttered "Fuck." under his breath.

The machine made its careful way around the room. It quartered the walls and ceiling as well as any SeeD could have done, even if SeeDs had been six inches tall, and took up an alert posture next to the air-vent on the ceiling, dark against the clear white plasterboard.

Seifer decided to try an experiment. He whistled, a low, loud sound he'd perfected at a hundred girls in short SeeD skirts. The lights on the machine went dark for a moment and flashed once, twice. It crawled slowly across the ceiling and down the nearest wall, apparently unfazed by the ninety-degree change in angle and came to rest on the floor by Seifer's bag.

Seifer reached down and scooped it up, flipping the mousetrap over like a hamburger to reach the switch on the back. The machine went dead with an indignant beep which sounded disappointed even to Seifer's ears. He shook himself and ran one hand along the metal casing. Rockets. He was nearly sure he remembered not putting rockets on the thing.

And then he threw the machine into his kit bag, and lay back.

For nearly ten minutes, nothing happened. Then there was a tiny scratching noise and something crept down from the air vent. Seifer didn't move. One, a tiny thing shaped like a ladybird, two, an even smaller fly and three, a larger, more elaborate mantis-like creature.

He waited for a while, but nothing else appeared.

Eventually he reached for a pack of Marlboros and lit up, hoping that the cigarette smoke would somehow corrode the delicate mechanisms inside.

_Nnn. Nice to know what the rules are, so I can break them later. _

He didn't consider telling Odine about the bugs, because he almost certainly knew already. If confronted, he'd either lie about it or just say _yeah, and_? And Seifer didn't know if he could deal with that. Not without ripping Odine's goatee off and stuffing it down his throat.

He took several sheets of paper from the printer unit built into the white computer, stole a pen from the nearest empty room and headed outside. He waited until he had put a good few blocks and as many levels between himself and the lab before settling down on a bench to write. The bench was made of a white plastic, beautiful and ferociously uncomfortable. Seifer figured he had maybe ten minutes before his ass went completely numb, so he wrote fast, scrawling several letters in the blue ink of an Odine Laboratories biro.

_Fuujin-_

_How you doing? say hi to Raijin for me. Guess you got my letter before I left: still stands. _

_Hope teaching isn't too boring; don't take any shit from the first years, they've got to learn their place. As if you need to be told but hey. Esthar is boring, don't bother coming if you ever get the chance._

_S_

_Edea-_

_Hope you are all right and that the storms this summer left Centra okay. I'm still thinking of you on that island, and you know what? Maybe what I did, what I'm doing now, maybe it was the right thing for a change. I still don't know. The laboratory is fine and I'm trying to figure stuff out here but don't worry if I can't write you again for a while. The post here sucks. Hope Cid is back now keeping you company or maybe Zell or someone. He's all right even if he still is a chicken wuss and kind of a loser but don't tell him I said that (the all right bit, not the loser you can tell him that if you like)_

_I worry- _

_Take care of yourself._

_Seifer_

He spent rather more time on Squall's letter, paying more attention to things like spelling and punctuation. Seifer could spell properly, it was just one of those things he couldn't be bothered to do when he was in a hurry, like being civil, and negotiating.

_Squall-_

_You said in Centra that you'd arrange some kind of communication. Is Ellone it? I met her in a bar in Esthar_ _City_ _and she offered to carry these out. Don't worry it was all very proper. She looks kind of like you, It's weird. Garden's protection my ass though. Odine's made it impossible to email you or send regular mail so it's the best I can do at the moment. Everything's recorded and organised so there's no hope of me getting out if things get tough (they might). Estharians are crazy-especially Odine. Seems harmless enough at the moment but I'm trying to keep my options open. So far nothing come to light re. Edea or the wars. Odine's done a few tests-bloods, scans of brains and things but he won't explain much of it and its difficult. Maybe you could check it out with Dr Kadowaki, she must know about that shit. Don't think I'm the best person for it but will try. Odine's up to something strange though I'm sure._

_It'd make me feel better if you replied to this _

_Is Quistis all right?_

_Seifer Almasy_

After he had finished he walked round to the Dollet embassy and hung around the lobby for a while. The room was air-conditioned and had much better seats than the average Estharian street. It also had free envelopes, and spare pens set out on spindly-legged little tables. Seifer took several envelopes and stuffed the pens into his pocket, He addressed all of the letters care of Garden, didn't bother about stamps. The envelope-theft ensured one of the staff came to ask him what he wanted just about the time he had sealed the last letter.

"Was there something that you wanted..?" The embassy aide looked Seifer up and down and added "Sir."

"Yeah." Seifer told him. "I'm here to see Ellone."

"Ellone?"

"Ellone Leonhart, I guess." Seifer said. "How many Ellones have you got working here?"

"She isn't on customer service this afternoon. She can't see you."

"Why don't you go and find out. She'll see me."

Apparently he was right, because ten minutes later he was squeezed into one of the spindly chairs, staring at Ellone over the middle of a desk almost as crowded as Squall's.

"This isn't a good time." she told him.

Seifer gestured at the clock. "It's inside office hours."

"Exactly my point."

"You offered."

"So I did." Ellone said, in a tone of voice that indicated that she was already regretting it. She looked neater and much more businesslike that the girl Seifer had met in the bar the previous night. "Make it quick."

Seifer shoved the letters at her. "Post these."

Ellone took the letters from him and shuffled them like cards. Her nails were painted a very severe shade of plum that matched her uniform. Seifer decided he liked it. Finally she looked up. "It seems that the SeeD budget these days won't stretch to stationery."

"Take it up with your brother."

Ellone's mouth twitched. "I'll bear that in mind. And I'll post your letters." Long fingers rubbed the paper envelopes. "Don't worry about stamps or franking."

Seifer shrugged. "I wasn't."

He thanked her briefly, left the embassy and walked slowly back to Odine's lab, making the trip last. Smoked a cigarette right down to the filter, stubbed it out and smoked another. A pair of Estharian journalists politely got in his way, but made themselves scarce when Seifer told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of the press in general and them in particular. It was rather specific, and involved sharp objects.

To pass time, he visited all the shops along the route, one after another. He was in a bookshop when he found it, the last store along his route. It was small, dog-eared and obviously second-hand. Seifer noticed it stuck behind a copy of Weapons Monthly he didn't think he'd read. He rubbed a thin layer of dust off with his thumb, a process which may have removed some of the dust but did nothing for the state of the cover.

The faded gilt lettering read _The Art Of War_.

Seifer had never considered war an art, more of a recreational activity. SeeDs didn't have much to do with wars, despite the sorceresses, unless you counted killing monsters or just general fighting. The Estharians did, or had. The book consisted mainly of all the times in which an enemy was not allowed to strike back, assuming the enemy you were facing had read the right chapters. Seifer flicked through it for entertainment value until he came to a section that he thought made sense.

_When facing an enemy of greater strength and size, do not attempt to attack head on. Instead subvert his forces by cunning and subterfuge, whittling them down to the core, If the core proves remarkably resilient, endeavour to be the larger party. _

Seifer snorted. A civilian talking about war was pretty much, he thought, like a virgin talking about sex. They had some general ideas, but they didn't have any actual experience.

He bought the book anyway, and took it back to the lab.

Thankfully Odine was absent. This happy state of affairs continued for some days.

Seifer asked one of the white-coated interns where he was and got a short answer about him being on some course or other. Three days, but it seemed longer, and if it came to that Seifer was never sure exactly how long he spent in Esthar. The Estharians had a different calendar based on some Hyne variant belief system. It counted down. He had inquired what happened when they ran out of numbers and was relieved to be told that they just started again.

He spent the spare time wandering around the labs, getting in people's way, touching things that it was critical not be touched, trying to charm or bully any of the interns into actually explaining something to him.

"So what's this?"

"That's an X-ray."

"What's that? Is that normal?"

"That's the hippocampus."

"What's that, when it's at home?"

"It's part of the brain. It controls memory, emotions. It's very complicated."

"How does it know?"

"It's the brain. That's how it knows. Look, go and read a book, okay? If you can."

He found a few books, and worked through them with a dictionary. The scientific papers were more use, and Odine kept his carefully filed in one of the unlocked labs, in alphabetical order. Seifer stole them, ran them through the photocopier, and replaced them in approximately the same order as he'd found them. Most of them seemed to be explaining how any surviving sorceresses or knights would be amazingly fucked up, as far as he could tell. He guessed that this was the reason for Odine's occasional disappointed expression. He wasn't that crazy.

Not really.

He found a warm spot up on the roof of the lab, one hundred feet above the bustling Esthar streets, and spent most of his spare time there, with photocopies. Sometimes he even read them.

He was still there on the morning of the fourth day, sprawled out on the highest point of the tower, on top of one of the huge water cisterns that supplied the laboratory building. The lab roof ski-sloped down around him like a huge soap bubble, and if you leant back at just the right angle, the city was erased and you could look out across all the miles of empty sky to the desert.

Seifer had always liked deserts. Something about growing up on the Centra beaches and tanning pretty well for a blond guy. You always knew where you were, in the desert. Admittedly, it was usually in the middle of a blisteringly hot stretch of sand, but you knew where you were. Everything got pared down in a desert, until only the important questions were left, like '_Do you think that scorpion I just trod on was poisonous?_' and '_So, who did you say had the water?_"

Quistis had hated the desert, something about her skin, and how it peeled. She complained that the boundless plains made her feel small, how it reminded her of time compression. She liked the cooler northern seaboard and the coast, didn't seem to realise how fast a storm could gather off the smooth blue sea and how quickly it could catch you off your guard. Seifer had tried to explain it to her once, but he'd ended up sounding like a retard and Quistis hadn't understood anyway, so he'd stopped. There were some things that Quistis would never realise, that he'd never be able to explain well enough to make her understand. Maybe it was his fault, she sure had thought so the last time he'd seen her.

The nearest he'd got was telling her that he liked the desert heat, and she'd just given him the oldest look in the world and told him that it was just as well given where he was going.

"Isn't that dangerous?"

Seifer shaded his eyes with his arm and tilted his head just enough to see down the narrow gully created by the intersection of two of the water tanks. There was someone there, some guy, slightly built and dressed in a thin blue shirt, with one of those ageless faces the Estharians seemed to specialise in. He could have been an old-looking thirty, or, as the sun caught his face, a youthful fifty-five.

"Everything's fucking dangerous." Seifer shouted back. It was true that there was no safety rail; it was also true that it was a drop of several hundred feet from the edge of the water tank to the blue glass walkway below. It was true that if the walkway was as fragile as it looked (which Seifer had to admit that it probably wasn't) then it was as far again to the level below, and the one below _that_, and the six more underneath. But the height was only a problem if you planned on falling, and Seifer's immediate plans did not include suicide. "What do you want?"

"Nothing."

Seifer slitted his eyes against the sun and tilted his head. "Long way to come up here for nothing." He shifted on the water tank to get a better view, registering the stranger's voice, the way he stood, the stupid hair. "Hey" he said casually, "don't I know you?

"It's possible."

Seifer decided to play along. "You know Odine?"

"You might say that. I've worked with him, certainly. But that was a long time ago. I can't say that I enjoyed it."

"Does anyone? He's a fucking weirdo." Seifer said. He picked paint from the cover of the water-tank with his left hand, considering tactics. He was unarmed, but not without weapons and anyway he doubted he would need them. Not with Laguna.

"That's one way of putting it." the President of all Esthar said cheerfully. He had moved slightly, balancing near the edge with his arm braced on one of the water-tanks. He looked out over the city with every sign of casual enjoyment. "The guy's a respected scientist in some fields."

"Like I'd know. " Seifer said caustically. He glanced up as a shadow crossed his face. High above a large bird or small monster soared, tracing perfect, decreasing circles on the flawless empty sky. "Sure you haven't got better things to do? I know I have."

"What better things? It's a beautiful day. I don't often get the chance to come up to places like this and just sit. You can see the whole city from here."

Seifer muttered _I just bet you don't_ under his breath. He slapped a fly from his arm and said, loudly "It's nothing special. And it's boring."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that."

_Thought you might not_. "It's full of fucking pacifists. And there's too many laws."

"Yeah, but the crime rate's low and the economy rose by fourteen percent last year. Or so they tell me."

"You work in the government?" Seifer said, pretending he didn't know the answer. He was pretty sure he was really bad at this kind of thing: he felt like he was playing cards with the person who invented the game and was approaching the point where he was going to have to ask Laguna what the fuck he wanted. Sound drifted up between the buildings, inaudible unless he sharpened his hearing and concentrated.

"You could say that." Laguna said eventually. "But I mostly try to listen to the people who make problems."

"City this big. You must be a busy guy."

"Sometimes."

"Am _I_ a problem?"

"Not yet."

"What you gonna do? Deport me? 'Cause Odine won't have that."

"Not yet."

Seifer stubbed his cigarette out on the tank, which blistered and emitted a foul metallic odour. The sun was gathering strength as the morning slipped towards midday, too hot even for nicotine. The metal was almost too warm for comfort under his bare feet. "Guess I should feel honoured. Long way to come and all, just to check up on me. And you fucking know a lot about me, I bet. But do you know what shit Odine's playing on Edea?"

Laguna seemed to consider that for a minute. His expression was much more like Ellone's than Squall's; open and cheerful on the surface like the Centra tides, but with hidden riptides underneath. "Yeah." he said eventually. "Yeah, I guess so."

"You let that happen?" Seifer said, sitting up. The conversation had passed the point of relaxation, this was serious and it felt good. He wondered, faintly, at the back of his mind, if it felt so good just because he needed someone to blame, someone else to offload guilt on other than himself and the impervious Odine, but didn't care. "You don't know her. She brought up your kids, for fuck's sake, and you don't even fucking know her. She's a basket case."

Laguna's eyes narrowed, the first sign of anger Seifer had seen in him. He stopped absently viewing the city and stared right at Seifer. "Hey, you're not very courteous, you know."

"So I've been told. What about an answer?"

"Hyne, she agreed-" Laguna began, and paused. He was interrupted by an ear-splitting siren. In tone and volume, it was similar to the sonic wave attack certain varieties of monsters used, but with a musical undertone that made Seifer think of one of Quistis's favourite GFs. He shook his head, accusations forgotten. "What the hell's that?"

Laguna leaned out over the cityscape, unconcerned by the height or the lack of any protective barrier. "It's only the alarm." he said, and pointed. "Beyond Seven Dials district, it looks like."

Seifer reached for his boots. He knotted the laces one-handed, balanced for a second on the lip of the tank and leapt down. The heavy soles thudded audibly on the building's flat roof. "What's it _do_?"

"It warns people not to leave their houses." Laguna said, as if he should know.

"Yeah, like that explains _everything_-"

Laguna pointed. "Ah, there it is." His finger traced the appearance of a small black speck on one of the walkways, far to the east.

Seifer joined him on the edge, thought how easy it would be to accidentally fall off, and shifted to a safer hold. He shaded his eyes with one hand, and squinted. The shape wasn't easy to make out in the hammer-blow sun, but it was moving closer, slowly. "A _monster_ alarm?" he said, and then thought that he shouldn't have been so surprised. Estharians used technology for everything; _of course_ they'd have some kind of monster warning system.

"Yep."

"Does it work?" He tilted his head, trying to identify the species. Sun flashed in the windows of skyscrapers.

"Course. This is Esthar." Laguna said. They both watched as a dozen tiny figures converged on the monster, a purple Behemoth with a tiger-striped hide. The fight took no more than a few minutes. Seifer caught himself thinking that the Estharians must have some shit-hot battle magic, comparing this cool and clinical dispatch with the sweat and sheer physical exertion of taking on several monsters solo. He ached for Irvine's sniper rifle, or even some really long-range spells.

Laguna sighed, beside him. "Makes me miss the old days." There was a suit jacket crumpled at his feet and his hair was pulling out of a loose ponytail. Close up, the resemblance to Squall or Ellone was even stronger. The only difference was the expression, which was much closer to Ellone's grin than Squall's stony glare.

Seifer grinned, thinking that Squall must have inherited his mother's ability to think the worst of everything "You were a soldier, right? Before you jacked it all in for politics."

"Yep."

"You sure as hell don't act like a president."

Laguna picked the crumpled jacket, absent-mindedly brushed off some dust and slung it over his shoulder. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"About Edea-" Seifer began.

Laguna held up one hand. He dug in an overloaded pocket and withdrew four crumpled pieces of paper. "Ellone gave me these."

Seifer took the letters. "Thanks. Hey, no wonder you're up here. Ellone told you about me, right?"

Laguna shrugged. "Well…we're family. And Ellone visits me more then her brother."

"Hyne, between the three of you the Leonhart family's practically running the world by now." Seifer told him. He stuffed letters and hands in his pockets and copied Laguna's example, leaning back against the sun-warmed metal. "Squall, in Balamb, everyone there pretty much does whatever he says. Me included, looks like. Ellone's in the Dollet embassy and I bet she rises fast. And you, half the people in this city think you're a fucking god or something."

Laguna shrugged. "It's Loire, actually. Not Leonhart." He winced. "Long story."

Seifer regarded him suspiciously. "So what'd you want to see me for? Ellone could've given me those."

Laguna grinned. It was open, cheerful, and coming from a member of Squall's family, eminently untrustable. "I told you, I listen to people who make problems. Odine mentioned you, and then Elle did, too. So I decided to come see."

"Odine, huh? You said you worked with him once." Seifer studied his face, watching for any sign that might indicate mistrust, but the president of all Esthar merely looked puzzled.

"I wouldn't say 'with', exactly. More like 'for'." He looked worried, for a second. "Watch him." There were sweat patches under the arms of his shirt and a thin silver chain gleamed at his throat. Squall's dad must share his son's taste in unsuitable jewellery, Seifer thought, but then Laguna moved and he saw a pair of dog tags laced onto the chain. Mementoes, maybe.

"Scuse me, but I thought that was your damn job. He's writing a thesis on me. Or maybe a book. Depends on how fucked up I really am."

"You don't look that unstable."

"Thanks, but you've got no idea. Anyway, enough talk, thanks for the letters and everything, but what do you want?"

"Do you want to work?"

"Work? You know what I do, right?"

"Of course I know." Laguna said patiently. "That's why I'm asking."

Seifer frowned. His definition of 'work' went something like '_go hit something 'til it dies, then sell its body parts_' and there didn't seem to be any call for that kind of stuff in Esthar. "Sure. Nothing too illegal, though." He considered. "Well, that depends on the pay. What did you have in mind?"

"Strictly freelance. Monster hunting." Laguna told him. He produced a bottle of mineral water from his capacious trouser pockets, drank deeply and handed it to Seifer.

The ex-knight thought about refusing, just to illustrate a point, but he was thirsty. The water tasted expensively of some kind of fruit, behind the chemical tang. Moisture beaded on the outside of the bottle and slicked his hand as he handed it back to Laguna. "Why? No offence, but it doesn't look like you need me for that here."

"Oh, not now. " Laguna said. He waved a hand and would have fallen off the building were it not for a cunningly placed foot wedged in between the crumbling bricks. "It'll be a fortnight, and I don't know whether Squall'll have something planned for you then anyway, but we'll need everyone we can get who can handle a sword."

Seifer grinned at the mention of _handle a sword_. "Won't be a problem. And Squall hasn't told me anything."

The expression on Laguna's face was very similar to something Seifer had once seen on Angelo-eager, and kind of demanding, too. "You'll do it?"

"Tell me, then pay me, _then_ I might." Seifer said. He lit a cigarette and prepared himself for a long speech, which wasn't long in coming. If he had known it, the lecture Laguna recited to him on the rooftop was pretty similar to the letter he had sent to all the Gardens, and he reacted to it in much the same way as Quistis had. "That's crazy. Interesting, but crazy. Never gonna work."

Laguna looked slightly disappointed. "Why not?"

"Cause if it could've been done, somebody would have done it by now." Seifer said logically. He craned his neck to check out the site of the monster-slaying, which was as sanitised and clean as it had been five minutes previously, and breathed a sigh of relief as the siren finally stopped. The shrill noise was replaced by the gentle hum of conversation as the citizens of Esthar ventured out of their homes again.

"Ah. But if everyone said that, maybe that's why it hasn't been tried yet." Laguna said. He grinned as if that was a sensible answer.

"Don't know." Seifer told him. "Sounds like suicide. How much?" The bright light reflecting from the windows of the skyscrapers was beginning to give him a headache. He wanted more water, but didn't feel like asking.

Laguna shrugged. "Enough."

"Balamb coins, or Esthar credits?"

"I'll sort something out." Laguna said. "Besides, I reckon you owe the republic of Esthar something for all those monsters that got dumped on us in the Cry." He smiled cheerfully.

"Yeah." Seifer said glumly. " 'Was wondering when you'd get round to that."

* * *

_To: Seifer Almasy: Probationary SeeD Cadet Third Class-_

_From: Commander Squall Leonhart_

_Seifer-_

_Re-Odine: you seem to have instituted appropriate communications channels. Use them. Use your own initiative as far as is appropriate, referring to the SeeD Manual at all times despite present status and _**without use of unnecessary force**_. Doctor Kadowaki says it would help if you could send photographs of the machines, I'll leave that up to you._

_I have attached details of a proposed mission occurring in Esthar in approximately two weeks' time. All of the official SeeD forces are expected to participate in this mission, including those on probation. Attending SeeD representatives will make themselves known when the majority of our troops arrive in one week's time. _

_Yours most sincerely_

_S Leonhart_ _(Commander, B Garden)_

Seifer sniggered at the italics. Squall knew him too well, he decided. The note was brief and to the point, standard mission format. There was an attached copy of a letter that pretty much paralleled Laguna's little speech. Squall read it a few minutes after Laguna had left the rooftop, rocked back on his heels against the wall in the shade. The bricks were rough through his thin T-shirt, and in between flipping pages he wiped sweat from his face with the back of his hand.

There were other letters, too, three of them. Fuujin's was the shortest. Her concise phrases neatly approximated her speech patterns, although Seifer knew that she had been told Hyne-knew-how-many times by the Garden tutors to write properly. It wasn't that she didn't know how, more like she didn't care. It suited her, Seifer thought.

_Seifer._

_Affirmative._ _Teaching tedious but some students show promise. Raijin is fine. Everyone else, too._

_Hope to see you in Esthar._

_Fuujin._

Edea's letter was written on proper paper, with a real fountain-pen. It was short, but Hyne knew Seifer had had enough problems thinking of what to write to her, and he doubted that she was in a different situation.

_Seifer_

_Thank you for writing; I am fine. There have been no summer storms yet which I am thankful for with Cid gone. There is much anticipation about this new mission and it should hopefully bring in revenue for Balamb. What a wonderful idea, too! I think you must have heard about it by now. Zell has been staying with me for a while although I think the island is too quiet for his taste. Still, he is doing a marvellous job keeping our little patch of Centra free from monsters! _

_There have been no episodes since I last saw you and I hope that this is a good sign. _

_Please continue to write and take care of yourself._

_Much Love._

_Edea._

Seifer shrugged. Edea seemed quite optimistic, but he knew her well enough not to trust its cheerful tone. Zell's letter made him happier, though like all contact with Zell, it gave the ex-knight the irrepressible urge to punch the fighter quite hard in the face.

_Hey Almasy._ _You need to learn to spell or something- it's like trying to translate a foreign language. I'm staying with Edea at the moment but she's been fine and seems quite cheerful. Squall thought it was a good idea to have somebody staying with her after you left because Cid's helping with the Esthar_ _City_ _mission- so haven't seen Quistis but I'm sure she's all right. Anyway,-she can look after herself. I'd be surprised if she's still not gunning for you so keep your head down, okay? Not that I'm bothered or anything. _

_I'm sure Squall'd be interested to hear that you tried to chat his sister up. I'll have to keep that letter as blackmail or something. Heh._

_Also, I guess that you've met Odine by now-creepy, huh? Hope he's not too freaked by what he finds in your head. _

_-Zell_

Seifer folded the letters into a thin wad and finished his cigarette, tipping his head back against the wall to blow a thin stream of smoke into the air. After some thought he stuffed the letters into a deep crevice between a couple of the water-tanks, trusting to the general disinclination of scientists of all disciplines to venture out into the fresh air. The interns and aides in Odine's lab tended towards the pale and skinny type. The weather was dry, and looked as if it was going to stay that way. The letters should be safe.

He flicked the cigarette butt off the roof, and made his way inside. The shady coolness of the stairwell was pleasant after the blowtorch heat of an Estharian summer, and so he lingered a little longer that he could have done before he made his way to his room. He didn't take long, but he took long enough for an aide to catch up with him.

"Odine wants you in the lab." she gasped between laboured breaths, as if she'd been running. "Follow me."

"He's back?"

"Of course. Why, don't you know? The National Association of Research Scientists always meets at this time of year, in Galbadia. It's a three-day conference. Where did you think he went?"

Seifer shrugged. "Away, I guess."

"He's got some new theories, from what I hear. And he wants to talk to you."

Seifer shrugged, but he followed her down the steps anyway, thinking about cameras for Dr Kadowaki and admiring the curves underneath her lab-coat. "What about?"

"I don't know." the intern said primly. She hugged herself as she walked down the corridor, something which only enhanced her curves. Her robes were racily short by Estharuan standards- just below knee length- and she wore skin-coloured tights beneath them, woven with a geometric pattern that emphasised each calf muscle. Seifer, who had experience in such things, rated her legs a high seven out of ten.

"Come on…..nah, lemme guess, he's invented half a dozen new tests to try out on me-one at a time-then all together."

The aide turned her head imperceptibly. Her long black ponytail bobbed, her voice was as cool as water. "Not exactly."

"What d' you mean by that-" Seifer asked her, then paused as he saw Odine's squat white-coated body march out of his laboratory, the little scientist's head measuring easily a metre below the heavy stone lintel. "Oh." Odine sure looked enthusiastic, he thought, his stubby legs marching metronomically along under his coat, then rephrased 'enthusiastic' to read 'angry." The scientist carried a slim sheaf of paper, which Seifer took for conference notes.

"Seifer!"

"Yeah?"

Odine marched up to Seifer, coming up to approximately the ex-knight's armpit. He held out the crinkled paper and pointed to an article on the front page. A newspaper, Seifer realised as he took it, instead of notes. He scanned the lines of closely printed text.

"_When asked of his opinion of Commander Leonhart, Mr Almasy muttered something about "camp bastards with jewellery and girly hair" and then held our interviewer at knifepoint and demanded cigarettes."_

"Do you _hav_ an answer for zis?" Odine demanded.

"Uh, the journalists?" Seifer suggested. He looked up from the paper and adopted an expression of virtuous innocence. "My commander advised me not to talk to the press."

"I doubt he told you to assault them."

"I didn't."

"You indicated zat any further transgressions would involve him, personally, zat is to say the journalist, and I quote, '_going home in an ambulance'_. This isn't Balamb. Ve are not barbaric. Just request politely and you vill be left alone."

"Must be why the papers here are so fucking boring." Seifer muttered. He tossed the paper in the direction of the nearest rubbish bit, a clinically clean stainless steel cylinder with a yellow clinical waste bag protruding from the top. The pages hit the side of the bin and fell open, scattering cheap paper across the corridor. A raised eyebrow from Odine had the intern scuttling to clean it up and Seifer thinking that there was some point to minions, after all.

Odine gestured him into the lab. The scientist's presence behind him made Seifer prickle behind his shoulderblades, but he swallowed his retort and went.

"Hav you been using your time here productively?"

Seifer shrugged. "I guess. Talked to Ellone. She said you made a machine out of her brain."

"Her brain patternz. Do they teach you nothing at zat school?"

Seifer grinned. "Could you do that for me? That'd be kind of cool."

Odine grunted. Seifer could almost hear Quistis in the background, making some scathing remarks about how a machine made out of Seifer's brain would smoke and make some amazingly rash decisions, have an overlarge capacity for vengeance and get into fights and how that was not the what the world needed. "I think not."

"Saw Laguna."

"Ah, our President. An interesting fact: I am sure zat you vill be able to translate the word _lacuna_ in the old tongue."

"Means '_hole'_"

Odine smiled thinly. "Exactly."

"He didn't seem that dumb to me."

Odine gave Seifer a look which summed up the scientist's opinion of Seifer's mental acuity, somewhere in between a goldfish and about half an Imp. "He would not."

Despite the intern's speech, Odine's new tests really weren't that interesting. They certainly didn't seem to be meting with Odine's expectations, because half way through he left Seifer to it and sat down at his desk, scowling and flicking through a packet of scans. Seifer, reading upside down, made out his own name at the top of one of them. The second label was blank, one of Odine's archive copies, he guessed. Even looking carefully, Seifer couldn't see any difference, and apparently neither could Odine. The scientist grunted, put the marker down and turned to refer to one of a large pile of books stacked at his elbow, calibrating results with his left hand without looking. The red lights on the machine beeped and went still, spooling out a long trail of data.

"What's that?"

"You vould not understand. And do not move. You will interfere with ze measurements"

Seifer swallowed. His mouth was dry, with a slight metallic taste that was beginning to be almost familiar a side-effect of whatever it was Odine was doing. "Try me."

"All right. The process iz based upon a multiple magnetic resonance scan of ze brain, modelling a holographic representation of synapse activity. Zat is it, yes? It iz experimental but not new."

"But you're still not happy with it."

Odine frowned at Seifer over his glasses. "On ze contrary."

_Liar_, Seifer thought. _You're not happy, these tests of yours, whatever they are, aren't going very well, and you know it. I'll figure it out, find out what I want to know._

_Sometime soon…._

_Almost certainly.._

_Dammit._

* * *

Hey guys. Finals are almost here, but RTS is quite a good way to get rid of some creative steam. There's a limit to how creative you can be in science, and it's very, very small.

Anyway, hope everyone enjoyed this, 'cause the pace is about to speed up. A reunion is anticipated.

Reviews:

Altol –ah, things are okay, just busy, that's all. What's your next project?

Asga-thankyou:

Ash: wow, thanks!

Ghost140: ta:D

Iudex Acerbus: No Quistis/Seifer 'til next chapter I'm afraid. But it'll be worth it.

Jack Hanek: well, I'm going to finish it :P I know how it's going to end, and I have notes right to the end.

Quistis88: thanks a lot. The Latin is culled off the internet (didn't have the benefit of a classical education I'm afraid-so it's a bit Babelfished.)

Selphie-fan: hey, I like people who review lots. Keep it up!

Superviolist: Squall is sneaky, but Laguna is almost as bad. I really enjoyed writing Laguna, he's kind of funny.


	15. Chapter Fourteen: Messing With Angels

Recovering The Satellites

Her man is a monkey, we all agree,

This woman's a saint, or at least she's a queen.

But if you mess with this angel, the harpy arrives

Talons for wings and a Colt 45...

James: Dumb Jam.

Chapter Fourteen: Messing With Angels

* * *

_Three days later, in the Hall Of Customs in Esthar_ _City-_

"Thank you for visiting, Madame! Have a pleasant day!"

Quistis smiled politely at the Estharian official and pushed her trolley through the _Arrivals_ gate. It was an operation that was not as easy as it looked: the public carts were not as well-maintained as the Estharians' polite phrases. The trolley's tiny wheels skittered over the tiled floor like an imp on speed. Quistis crushed her toes beneath a wheel.

Behind her, the Estharian smiled a perfect bleached smile and turned to the next person in line.

"Thank you for visiting, Sir! Have a –"

His rote speech trailed into the distance as Quistis pushed her trolley into the port facility, her SeeD kitbag resting in solitary state in its centre. Crowds of people surrounded her, most of them dressed in smart variations of Estharian business robes. A few children skittered and squealed among the forest of people. Quistis moved her trolley carefully out of their path. She cut across the port's vast tiled floor to the nearest exit, limping slightly and making mental notes to charge some robes to her SeeD expense account as soon as possible.

She left the trolley in a silver corral filled with a dozen others just like it and walked out into the city.

It was magnificent, as usual. Esthar wore its population lightly. Despite its size, the city always seemed half empty. Soaring glass skyscrapers stretched into the flawless desert sky, their surfaces gleaming with the inlaid power lines which provided the Estharian inhabitants with their electricity. The sheer number and variety of buildings were astonishing compared to Balamb's only town. They had stunned Quistis on her first visit, a good few years ago, although she now considered herself too sophisticated to be more than moderately impressed by the sight. It would take her some time to get used to the city, though. It always did.

She took one of Esthar's free lifters to the Presidential Palace, one of the strangest in a city of bizarre and beautiful buildings. The gold power filaments on the surface of the tower glittered with reflected light from the sodium-yellow neon sculpture that arched over the building's entrance. There were no doors into the building itself, a symbol of the Esthar's government's newfound accessibility. It must have cost the city several million gil in air-conditioning bills every summer. The cool air hit Quistis like a slap as she walked in. She shivered, imagining that she could almost feel the sweat beading at the roots of her hair freeze into ice crystals. Quistis had junctioned Shiva to Selphie in Balamb, but echoes of the Guardian Force remained in her brain from months of long use. She could almost hear the GF purr, a frigid feline sound of delight at the chill.

The voice that interrupted her reverie was almost as cool. "SeeD Instructor Trepe? We've been expecting you. This way, please."

Quistis looked up and met the dark eyes of the building's receptionist. She was about Quistis's age, dressed in thickly embroidered business robes that looked a thousand times more uncomfortable than Quistis's thin silky skirt and vest. She nodded and fell in behind the girl, looking back once at her bags. Halls and corridors mapped out around her, familiar from the maps and schematics of Esthar that Quistis had studied in preparation for the Lunatic Pandora mission two years ago. Without them, she would have been hopelessly lost.

The receptionist walked slowly through courtyard after courtyard, each different, each beautiful, equipped with a different focal point; neon-lit waterfalls, softly cascading fountains, shapes sculpted from glass or bronzed metal. Each yard radiated a pattern of corridors: offices, meeting rooms and halls. Quistis followed, noting their position as she walked. The building was beautiful but it must have been hell to work in; the air conditioning ensured that the temperature inside the halls themselves was a few degrees shy of comfortable, something she had had more than enough of on the Winter Island. The courtyards, given Esthar's desert location, were baking. Quistis half-expected to find Seifer sprawled on a bench, lazy in the heat.

She didn't, and was devoutly grateful. The Estharians would shoot someone like Seifer on sight.

Her guide turned her head, a long plait of dark hair bouncing rhythmically between her shoulderblades as she walked. "So what do you like about our city?"

Quistis looked up from one of the corridors, caught off-guard, cross checking the hard data of experience with the building schematic in her memory. "It's nice."

The aide looked dissatisfied. Quistis tried to think of a reason that would be acceptable to the aesthetic Estharians -_easily defendable_ wouldn't, she thought, cut it. Neither would _rich_.

Diplomacy cut in. "Um-I love the way the rivers merge in the town."

"Really?"

Quistis gestured to a fountain. "So many levels." It wasn't true-she hated the Estharian rivers, or what passed for them, piped well water pumped up several thousand feet to trickling into Esthar's steel innards like blood through veins. As a lie, it wasn't bad, and had the advantage of being ambiguous enough to be accepted.

Her guide seemed satisfied enough to slip into instant travelogue mode. "You should visit the Bridge of Size on the third level." she suggested. "Or the Reflecting Pool."

"I'm on business. I doubt I'll have time." Quistis said automatically.

"Are you in town for the music festival?"

"Sort of."

"They're just setting up in the Arboretum." her guide told her, with as much enthusiasm as you ever got from an Estharian. "Are you -ah, but here it is."

She produced a card from her pocket, ran it through a sensor and handed the card to Quistis. A door hissed open. "Welcome to your room."

"Thank you." Quistis said politely. She turned the keycard over in her hand and stowed it safely in the pocket of her skirt.

"Enjoy your stay."

"I'm sure I will."

She went in, and shut the door. The room was large and bare, and empty, with that peculiar kind of silence that came from being alone in large, bustling buildings. The walls were terracotta, stencilled with olive-green lizards, the floor was polished wood.

Quistis immediately liked it. She was used to being treated well by clients of SeeD who thought that special treatment would secure the best deals from an envoy, but somebody had put thought into this one. There were candles on every flat surface and a hi-tech computer folded away into an alcove. The photographs that hung discreetly on every wall were red Centra landscapes.

Her black kitbag leant against the bed. Quistis piled her clothes away into a tiny wardrobe, and placed her SeeD weapons close to hand on the bedside table. After everything had been rearranged to her satisfaction she walked over to the windows and flung them wide, the streets below like canyons, mimicking the desert all around.

Adjoining the bedroom was a bathroom, and a gym with warm teak-panelled walls, its training mats pristine and unused.

_Laguna must want a large favour.…..but then I've seldom enjoyed being bribed so much._

She bounced experimentally on the bed and dug her feet into the carpet.

_I wonder what it is?_

The meeting with Esthar's president wasn't until two that afternoon, which meant that Quistis had plenty of time to try out the gym and take a bath afterwards, using a fortune's worth of desert water. Afterwards she braided her hair close to her head and stood in front of the mirror to try on the three outfits she'd brought. She looked at them critically in the glass. Robes were the usual formal wear in Esthar, wide-sleeved and embroidered, with pale floor length underskirts, but Squall had given her little time to prepare, and less to have a set made in her size.

_Though realistically, I could turn up for this meeting dressed as a Moomba Scout and Laguna wouldn't notice…._

In the end she decided on a pale linen suit, slightly crumpled from her trip. It made her feel uneasy, although she could tell as soon as she walked into the room that this was not going to be a formal meeting. Laguna wore the same blue shirt he always did, and Quistis thought (as _she_ always did) that his wardrobe must consist of ten pale blue shirts and five pairs of grey trousers. The shirt was untucked, and creased at the back, and open-necked. It was a little more expensive than Quistis had anticipated, and it had holes for cuff-links but no links.

Laguna greeted her cordially, as boundlessly enthusiastic as a Labrador. His informality was refreshing, but Quistis could see why it drove Squall up the wall. There was some military mindset in her brain that told her authority was there to be respected. Authority shouldn't sit on a couch with its shirtsleeves rolled up and ask you how you were doing and whether its son was remembering to sleep and write letters, and, while it was on the subject, how was Rinoa these days?

"Fine, I'm sure." Quistis told him. "But I didn't manage to spend much time at Balamb before I was reassigned."

"Lovely girl."

"Yes." Quistis said. Internally, she thought that Rinoa was much more pleasant now that she'd had some of the hippy curves rubbed off and replaced with nice sharp military corners, but she was wise enough not to say it.

"You didn't stay long?"

"Yes, well. I had my own reasons." Quistis said awkwardly, and changed the subject. "Thanks for the room. It's lovely."

Laguna didn't appear to notice the switch; he brightened up immediately, with a flashing grin that made Quistis understand why he was so well liked. His hair was dusty and dark like his son's, and looked as if he'd had it expensively styled and then slept on it for several days. "You liked the room! It's the guest suite. Great view up there. I hope it's got everything you need."

"Certainly."

"If it wasn't right, you'd say, yeah?"

"It's amazing." Quistis protested. A secretary brought drinks, cool iced water sparkling on a silver tray. Laguna handed her a glass. Condensation laced her fingernails.

"So you heard about my mission. What do you think?"

"It's different." Quistis said diplomatically.

"Mmmm. Squall told me that in his letter. Not very communicative, that boy. Still, he raised a few interesting points."

Quistis sipped from her glass and prepared herself for a long ride. Starting a conversation with Laguna was like boarding an unnamed train at a station and hoping you'd get to your destination. You got to where you wanted by chance, the grace of Hyne or by many changes of track. "The contract?

"Ah, yes, the contract." He unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it laboriously on the table. "Got it here."

Quistis winced at the creases. Was that a tea-stain on the back? Surely not.

"I didn't think that you yourself would negotiate with us." she said politely. "You must be busy."

Busy was the diplomatic word for it. Laguna kept his aides frantic by keeping his own erratic schedule. She'd heard rumours about harassed secretaries combing the city for the President, only to find him kicking a ball around with some children in a vacant lot or drinking tea with an old granny in one of the Estharian hospitals.

Laguna shrugged. "I've always got time for important stuff." he told her. "Anyone who goes to the trouble of finding me in the first place usually has some pretty important message or something. I usually leave Kiros to decide what's important and what's not. He's much better at it than I am."

Quistis wondered what was so important about the finer points of the contract. She had read it in detail, all three hundred pages of print. Most of the stuff she was here to negotiate concerned the ownership of monster items, and how much of the damage caused by the hunt the SeeDs would be legally responsible for. Tedious at best. But Laguna always had time for SeeDs.

Laguna drank deeply from his own cup and looked up. "Anyway, the contract. About the monster items….I thought maybe ten percent?" He smoothed his hair back, tucking the free ends into a shabby elastic band.

_Nice try._ Quistis thought. "We can't do that." she told him and shook her head in slight regret, a gesture she had perfected over weeks of hard negotiating. "All monster by-products and items, not just items, as we see fit to collect them. We thought one hundred percent, and we dispose of the unusable pieces of the carcasses."

"There are thousands of monsters in Esthar-that's a lot of items. I don't think-"

"That's a lot of mess."

Laguna frowned. He ran one hand around his neck, the silver chain of his dog-tags slipping in the cleft between thumb and first finger. "Fifty percent?"

"No."

Laguna's frown deepened. Tin clicked along cheap chain as he played with the necklace. "Sixty?"

Quistis hesitated. She hadn't hoped for much above fifty, and that was enough to fill all the storerooms and keep the quartermasters happy for a good few years, but she had a feeling….."Sir?"

Laguna held up both hands. "You got me. Eighty five. Final offer- and you guys dispose of all of the carcasses. With all the monsters gone, there'll be only the vultures to clean up. It'll stink."

Quistis mentally cheered. She didn't think cleaning up would be much of an issue: Estharian vultures were only one step down from monsters. She held out her hand "That'll be more than-"

Laguna grabbed her hand and shook it, vigorously. "And what about you do me a favour?"

Quistis's hand paused in mid-shake. "What favour?"

"I want you to hire an acquaintance of mine for the mission."

"Why?" Quistis asked suspiciously. In her limited experience, civilians on missions were more of a liability than an asset-look at Rinoa for Hynessake, they'd never got rid of _her_-

"It's a favour for a friend. Used to be a soldier."

Quistis pretended to consider as she catalogued the possibilities. Soldier meant Kiros and Ward, or so she thought. Either of them would be an asset, although she'd always been more comfortable with people who talked. It was typical, she could just see it. Laguna, the war hero, prevented from joining in Esthar's last great fight by Estharian principle, trying to do a favour for one of his old army buddies.

"Of course-"

"I'll arrange a meeting." Laguna said. "A couple of days should do it. Would that be okay?"

"I think so."

"Shouldn't take too long." Laguna said. He scribbled something on the contract and pushed it over to Quistis, who scanned the document. The printed terms all seemed to be in order, but Laguna's pen had mysteriously developed a leak half way down the page. She could make out something about –_reelance_, and something else about _missions_, but that was about it. Quistis held it up to the light, and squinted.

"Is there a problem?"

Quistis turned the paper. "No. No problem." she said, absently. "So who is it?"

Laguna paused in the act of reaching for another glass of water. "What?"

"Your friend-is it Kiros or Ward we'll be taking?" Quistis lowered the paper to the desk top and looked up expectantly, pen poised.

"Kiros?" Laguna said, hesitantly.

Quistis nodded, and signed.

Laguna exhaled and pressed another glass of water on her. He chattered nervously about his hopes for the project, about minerals and farming and how everyone in Esthar would be free to travel outside the city and goodness knew what else. Quistis found his uneasiness rather endearing, proof, as she thought, of his worry for his pet project, now everything was finally going ahead. She hoped for his sake that it worked. Laguna was one of the few people she'd liked instantly. He had that effect on most people, Squall being the most notable exception. An unusual man, to find acceptance in this city of pacifists, a dreamer who had ended up running a country, a minor-league journalist who'd risen to President on the strength of a few good decisions and Quistis really couldn't think of anyone better for the job.

She interrupted his flood of words after a while, politely but firmly. "About the other terms-"

Laguna shrugged. "That's all I can give you right now." He glanced at his watch. "I have another meeting soon. Sorry, and everything, but there's not much I can do. Hope that's okay for you."

Quistis, feeling generous after the successful signing, nodded her head. Of course it would be. She thought of how pleased Squall and Xu would be with the generous terms, and smiled. "How long?"

Laguna held up his hands in a Hyne-knows kind of gesture. "I don't know. A few days, maybe. It's likely I might be a while. I'll send you memos." He picked up a pen from the table and doodled absently. " Keep you posted."

"The Gardens will be waiting." Quistis said pointedly. She gentled the comment with a smile. "I'll see you in a few days, then."

The pen spun in Laguna's nerveless hands. "Hopefully."

Quistis folded her copy of the contract, a good deal more neatly than Laguna's original. She slipped in into a pocket of her suit and rose to leave. "May I enquire if your generous terms will extend to the Trabian and Galbadian Gardens? I know they've got separate contracts."

"Maybe. You know the city's proud of its special relationship with Balamb."

"Ah." Quistis said. She smiled secretly. The Trabia and Galbadian committees wouldn't like it that she'd arrived first, but they could just go french a chocobo. Besides, she couldn't see Laguna offering harsh terms to the Trabian headmaster, a severe looking dark haired woman who she knew he had a soft spot for. As for Martine, the Galbadian headmaster hadn't enjoyed anything much since the wars. Quistis personally disliked the man, although she felt a slight kinship with his widely advertised desire to destroy Seifer Almasy slowly and painfully over several years.

She waved at Laguna, who was biting his nails, staring out of the window and generally behaving in a quite un-President-like manner. "Goodbye, sir."

"Bye, Quistis."

* * *

Laguna waited for Quistis to leave before he got up to go himself. He was halfway to the door before it opened, hand already reaching for the handle. A small harassed-looking man, dressed in the livery of a Presidential secretary, slipped through it and stood in the doorway with the determined air of a goalkeeper.

The president groaned.

Laguna's secretaries tended to be harassed by virtue of his unique governing style. Laguna kept no regular office and even more irregular hours. He tended to assume that anybody persistent enough to find him wanted him for important things.

"Sir?"

Laguna glanced at all the windows as if calculating how fast he could escape through any of them, which was indeed the case. Unfortunately he had chosen to receive Quistis in one of the minor reception rooms, thirty stories up, so windows were out. The doorway was blocked by the secretary, and his assault rifle nowhere to be seen.

Laguna waited for a few seconds in the hope that either Kiros or Ward would intervene, but then he remembered that he had sent Kiros to Galbadia Garden several days ago. Ward was halfway across the city, dealing with some of the paperwork that seemed to dog his footsteps these days.

"This isn't really a good time-" he tried.

The aide stood with his back to the door and gabbled as fast as he could, trying to get his speech out before his president disappeared again. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "Your debate starts in a half hour, sir. Remember? I told you last week. The reports for the presentation are all in the multimedia files on your computer. There's an official dinner on Wednesday, and you've been asked to speak. Your speech department will deliver that for your approval Monday night. There are meetings with the Trabian and Galbadian representatives scheduled for this Tuesday, and there are some other appointments I'm holding off on your approval. And sir-"

"Yes?"

"It really would help if you would stay in your office."

"I don't have an office."

"Then maybe-" the aide panted "- you should get one. Sir."

Laguna, ever-thoughtful, handed him a glass of iced water. "Those meetings you were talking about? For today?"

The secretary looked hopeful. He delved in the deep pockets of his robe and pulled out a sheaf or folders. "Sir, I told you-"

"Are they important?" Laguna broke in.

"Of course, well, yes, not vital as such, but some of these things have been waiting for months-"

"Postpone them all. I've got something to do."

"But sir-"

"Do it." Laguna told him, and ran. He shouldered past the aide, who tried to stop him without dropping either the folders or the glass of chilled water. There was a wail, and a collision. It ended with Laguna halfway down a corridor, and the aide frantically mopping water from the (very expensive) hand-knotted Estharian carpet with the hem of his robe.

The President darted into a lift and stabbed the button for the ground floor, wiping water ineffectively from his shirt. Having reached the floor, he then made his way surreptitiously from the building, utilising a janitor's exit he'd had in mind for just that purpose. On the way he found another secretary, this one ambling along the corridor carrying a stack of paper. A second's work had her hastening up to the thirtieth-floor conference room, bearing a scrawled hand-written note.

DO NOT CHARGE HIM FOR THE CARPET IT WAS MY FAULT AND NOT HIS. TAKE IT OUT OF MY EXPENSES OTHERWISE PETTY CASH.

I AM VERY SORRY.

LAGUNA

Job done, the President of all Esthar slipped from his palace and used the city's free lifters to make his way to the opposite side of the city. A few people recognised him, but nobody interfered. Estharian culture was very big on the rights of the individual. If somebody obviously didn't want to be bothered, nobody bothered them. It was one of the reasons Laguna liked the place.

The laboratory guards admitted him with a smile. One of them escorted him to the foot of the building's fire escape; the others took turns to assure him that of course Odine wouldn't know about his visit, if the President so wished. _Populist fame_, Laguna thought. _It has its uses_.

He thought about that as he climbed the metal fire-escape to the roof, his hands and the knees of his trousers stained with rust. _Power._ _But no corruption, of whatever kind. No bribes. No favours. No ivory towers._ He was always aware of how open his power was to abuse, and that was one of the reasons he listened to the problems of the city. One of them.

Laguna reached the tower roof and stood looking down at the distance he had climbed, hair pulling out of its elastic band. He was panting, and made a mental note to train more. Difficult, these days-

"You took your time."

Laguna turned, heels scraping on the rough concrete roof. Seifer stared down at him from his perch on the water-tower, eyes half-slitted against the sun. He was smoking and shirtless, despite Esthar's taboos.

The President shrugged. "I'm a busy man."

"Yeah, I've got all day too. Odine's having a shitfit. Tests not going well, seems like, and-"

Laguna wiped rust from his hands. "They're not?" He slid a foot into brickwork, scratching already scuffed patent dress shoes beyond repair, and pulled himself up heavily to sit on the water tank, next to the ex-knight.

Seifer gave him a young-person's look, the kind that conveyed amazement that anybody so old and obviously decrepit should even be able to walk. "Nah. Fuckin' _hate _him." His tone of voice was not particularly threatening, but his eyes were cold enough to make Laguna wonder if he should maybe start assigning some extra security to the scientist.

"Really?"

Seifer read his expression. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill the bastard or anything. Edea's his hostage. I've got to find some way to help her, and maybe he's the only person who can right now." He grinned, nastily, and inhaled cigarette smoke with obvious relish. "But hey. Things might change."

"This city has laws." Laguna said mildly.

"I know. Too many if you ask me. Else I'd kill the bastard. Kill him, dig him up, and kill him again. It'd be my fucking hobby." He glanced at Laguna's dishevelled appearance, reached into the shadow of one of the tall chimneys and pulled out a plastic bottle of water. "How come you don't like him, anyway?" He threw the bottle to Laguna.

Laguna opened the canteen and swallowed, tasting plastic in the liquid. He half-grinned around the mouth of the bottle. "There's a story in that."

Seifer said nothing for a while, then shook his head and leaned forwards. He looked at his watch-a standard SeeD-issue chronometer, Laguna noticed, with a tatty black webbing strap. "What the hell. I've got nothing to do. Let's hear it."

Lagun was silent, considering. Finally he brushed hair out of his eyes-a futile effort, the wind blew it back immediately-and said "Once upon a time, I lived in Dollet, in a little town called Winhill. And next door was a woman who ran a bar. She was nice, like, really nice. And she had a little girl, called Elle."

Seifer waved a hand dismissively. There were olive and grey bruises on the knuckles. "Met her."

"That only makes things easier to explain. The little girl had a power, sort of-like Edea. And Adel,-she was the sorceress in Esthar at the time-wanted it. She sent soldiers to find her. We fought them -but Elle was taken." Laguna paused. He had told the story twenty times to different people, but he always found the next part hard.

"Pussies." Seifer muttered.

Laguna chose to ignore him. "And Raine died."

"Raine?"

"My neighbour." Laguna said. Seifer looked at him sidelong, perhaps sensing the lie inherent in those words. It wasn't hard. Laguna had tried hard to control his voice, to modulate it over the years so the telling of his story was no longer hard, but thinking of Raine always choked him up. You didn't use that tone of voice about a neighbour.

"I buried her in Winhill. And then I left to find Ellone. Took me six months before I found her, in a lab in Esthar City."

Seifer stabbed a finger at the concrete at their feet. "This one?"

Laguna shook his head. "The main facilities in those days were outside the city. The Lunatic Pandora Laboratory was badly damaged in the Cry. So I went there and got Elle out, and gave her to Edea and Cid to look after, and I went back to fight Adel. And we won. We tricked Adel into entering her tomb, but it was already too late." His hand sought blindly for the water bottle.

"What for?"

Laguna drank and continued, wiping droplets of water from his chin. "Odine had used Ellone to make a prototype machine-something that would do what Ellone's head can do -send people back into the past. Ultimecia used it, so we were in time for Adel, but not for Ultimecia. Didn't really realise."

"So it's all his fault." Seifer said with a kind of grim satisfaction. "Well, most of it, you know. The rest was me."

"You can't blame Odine. It's useless." Laguna told him. He remembered, not so many years ago and in this very city, telling the same thing to a group of SeeDs. They hadn't believed him, and they certainly hadn't followed his advice. He doubted that Seifer would.

Seifer rested his chin on his hand, the cigarette poking between his fingers. "So that's why you don't like Odine. He hurt Ellone."

"Yeah."

Seifer shrugged. "But you keep him here. Why? What's the point?"

"He's useful." Laguna told him. "And I know things about him." It was true, in a way. Odine was useful for the city, like magic and Guardian forces were for the SeeDs. Useful –but potentially explosive. There were safeguards, always. But Laguna had known Odine for a long, long time, and he knew things. Odine would be safe for the minute. He'd made sure of it.

"Hmm." Seifer said. He seemed to be thinking, and then he grinned. Laguna was expecting another question about the scientist, so the ex-knight's comment caught him rather off-guard. "So where's Squall fit into this happy family shit? I mean, they said his mother was a club singer."

Now that was news to Laguna. "A singer?"

"Yeah. I always thought it explained the hair. And the fucking gay clothes." He grinned again. "The jacket? You must have wondered."

Laguna looked puzzled. "What jacket?"

"You know-the jacket? The one with the furry collar? The-" Seifer's smile widened. "Oh, never mind. You wouldn't get it. So who was the singer?"

"It was in Deling City." Laguna grew misty-eyed at the memory. "Julia was a singer in the hotel there. I met her a few times. She used to play the piano too. " He looked wistfully into the distance. "She had the most amazing voice. Anyway, we lost touch. She ended up marrying General Caraway, some years later. They had Rinoa, and then Julia died. Several years before the wars, this was."

Seifer looked thoughtful. He lowered his cigarette and stubbed it out on the bare metal of the tank. "So, Squall and Rinoa, they're…"

"No."

"You never-?"

"No." Laguna said. His voice was so cold that an observer would not have been surprised to see the ice cubes in Seifer's water-bottle expanding.

Seifer looked surprised, but unrepentant. "Good job, really." He dug in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes, handling them with the respect other people used for rare jewels or large amounts of gil.

"Those things'll kill you." Laguna warned. Cigarettes were not sold in Esthar, another thing Laguna liked about the city.

Seifer shrugged. He leaned back into the tiny noon shade of the chimney and lit up. "Like I care. Like you really give a shit, for that matter." He looked challengingly at Laguna as if he was expecting the President to react, but was disappointed. Laguna just sat there, kicking his heels against the metal tank with a booming noise, and drinking the last of Seifer's water.

"Hyne, keep it down, will you. They don't know I'm up here." the ex-knight said irritably. "Let's cut to the chase here. I think I figured out why you came here to scope me out in the first place."

"Why?" Laguna asked with interest. As always, he had several reasons. Most people only saw the most obvious one, right at the top, and that made them happy, so Laguna let them. What they often didn't realise that was Laguna had several reasons for doing any given thing, each one wrapped around another like Liberation Day wrapping paper.

Seifer flicked ash from his cigarette. "Well, you don't want a psycho running round in your nice city unless you're damn sure he's not going to try anything."

Laguna awarded him a mental point. "Your reputation has preceded you." he said. It was true, he had been worried when he first heard that Odine had invited Seifer into the city, but not worried enough to stop him.

"Yeah, but overthrowing governments? Wouldn't know where to start. I'm safe. I think."

"That's-reassuring."

"You don't think I'm crazy? Not that I give a shit."

"No crazier than anybody else." the Estharian president told him. In fact, he was predisposed to like Seifer. The ex-knight didn't give a shit what anybody thought about him and treated Laguna with a blunt honesty backed with a wariness that was unusual- learned from Squall, perhaps. Laguna had met a dozen young guys like him in the war years, careless killers with guns and battle scars too old for them; had been one himself, in fact. A long time ago, now.

Seifer exhaled. Smoke drifted on the breeze. Far below, a dog barked. "So what about that job?"

Laguna brushed rust ineffectually from his trousers. "What about it?" he asked.

"Why'd you want me?"

Laguna shrugged. "We'll need everybody we can get. You're good with a sword, from all accounts. And I have my own reasons."

Seifer leaned back, shifting to find a tiny patch of shade in the sun. He held his cigarette cupped between his hands. "Such as?"

"Monster fighting's a good way to blow off steam. I don't want anything damaged and I want Odine left in one piece. Think you can manage that?" He glanced at Seifer, his gaze suddenly narrowed and as cold as his son's, despite the heat that beat back from every metal surface.

Seifer shrugged, taken aback for a second, or so it seemed. "I'm not promising."

"Try." Laguna said shortly. He looked out past Seifer to the horizon, and the summer's brilliance forced his gaze down to the towers and spires of his city.

"Okay, I guess…."

Laguna grinned, a sharp flash of white teeth in a pale, peeling face. "Then that should be fine."

Seifer didn't look convinced, and he certainly didn't look happy. "Yeah."

"No other contracts?" Laguna needled. He leant back on his hands, crossing his legs at the ankles, and realised that one of his socks was red, the other blue. They were streaked with rust, like most of his other clothes, and he decided that he should find a laundry.

"Nah." Seifer said, automatically, then, slowly, "Well, Squall's asked me, but I can get out of it, no problem. Or you can get me out…could you?"

"He doesn't listen to me a lot."

"Right, he listens to you. What's Balamb going to tell everyone, they can't go on any missions for a fortnight because the commander got grounded by his daddy?"

"This is a favour." Laguna said

"Alright, I'll talk to him." Seifer said reluctantly. He looked comfortable in the heat, as if the sun couldn't touch him. "Can't we sort this out now though?"

Laguna shook his head, spat fine dark hair from his mouth. "Nope. No can do. I want you to meet the person who'll you be working with before anything gets signed."

Seifer shrugged. "Who is it?"

"Just somebody I know."

"So you're not going to tell me?"

"Right." Laguna said cheerfully. "Oh, I forgot." He pulled a tattered piece of paper from the pocket of his trousers and handed it to the ex-knight, who regarded it with suspicion.

"What is this?"

"It's a letter." Laguna pointed out helpfully. "From Garden."

Seifer flipped the letter and squinted at some hieroglyphs scrawled carelessly across the obverse. "Oh, yeah. Fuu. Okay, thanks." He said _thanks_ as if he was not used to gratitude, and stuffed the envelope into his pocket.

"I'll send your teammate to meet you. Three days time, in the museum on Three Souls. Fifteenth floor. Five p.m." He slid the dogtags from around his neck with a practised twist and handed them to Seifer. "Take these."

Seifer looked at the tags and stuffed them into an already overflowing pocket. The chain hung out, shining against his dark trousers, and Laguna hoped he wouldn't lose it. "Which room?"

"There's just one. Trust me; you won't have a problem finding it. I'll arrange weapons, a permit, everything you'll need." He smiled, reassuringly.

Seifer frowned for a moment. He dragged his boots from the shadow of the chimney-stack, swapping his cigarette from one hand to another with the casual ease of long practice. "Be there." He stuck the tattered dog-end back between his lips and knotted his laces, then jumped down to the rooftop.

"Going so soon?"

"Sure." Seifer said. He took a couple of quick paces across the concrete and then turned and grinned in reply, a wide and open smile that made him look his age. "See you in three days."

"Not exactly. It'll be a representative." Laguna said mildly.

"Whatever. This is going to be fun." He turned, loped across the concrete floor and disappeared into the stairwell. Laguna heard his boots thumping down the stairs indoors.

The President waited for a while, sighed and flopped back onto the roof, feeling the radiant warmth of the metal soak through his thin shirt and into his muscles. He stared up at the sky, tracing dragons and faeries in the clouds until the heat of the sun grew too uncomfortable to bear and he dragged himself into the shade of the chimney-stack. His mouth grew dryer by the second and he knew that he would have to return to the city soon, but he sat for a few minutes longer, humming to himself and daydreaming.

Most Estharians dreamed of machinery, of making things work better than they had ever worked before. Laguna dreamed of Esthar. He didn't tolerate threats to his city, but he fought the tiny dragons of corruption and apathy every day, and he believed. He tried. He knew nearly ten percent of the city by name- impressive enough in a town like Balamb, impossible, nearly, in a great city of thirty thousand souls. He cared and worried about the city in equal measure and he had thought a lot about to wars and about the future with Kiros and Ward to help in through the hard bits, and they'd all come up with this plan. Kiros hoped that it would make the city prosperous. Ward wanted Esthar to be safe.

Laguna just hoped that it would work.

* * *

_I hope this works. _Seifer thought as he ripped open the letter. Flecks of paper fell to the floor. He ignored them. Passing Estharian pedestrians gave the litter, and Seifer, disapproving looks. He ignored them, too.

_Seifer-_

_Quistis is in Esthar. Don't think you know this yet. She still wears your necklace sometimes. Thought you would want to know._

_Got chance, still._ _Don't fuck it up._

_Fuujin._

Seifer swore, softly. He slumped down in the seat and leant one elbow on the arm of the chair, scrubbing his hand over his face. It didn't make it any easier to think, despite his hopes.

_Hell, thanks, Fuu._

He should have expected it, really. All of the SeeDs, all the Gardens, would be in Esthar soon. Quistis would never miss a big mission.

Seifer scowled at the letter and wished he'd never read it. Just when he was trying to do the noble thing, trying to sort his life out, here was Quistis. And she had a way of messing with his head, making him care about people, and that was the last thing he needed.

Quistis.

He remembered her face, that little quirk she had when she smiled, her legs, which were fantastic.

_It could have worked._

_Like hell. She slammed the door on me, leaving me with an unconscious Zell Dincht and a world-class hangover. Oh, yeah, and she hit me. I think. _

Seifer groaned and tipped his head back, resting the base of his skull on the hard back of the seat. It was smooth and shiny beneath his head. He closed his eyes, dazzled by the sun, and felt sweat start in his hair.

"Seifer?"

Seifer slitted one eye open and turned his head to glance upwards. He crumpled the letter in his right hand, moulding it into a ball. "Nnnh-hey, Ellone."

Squall's sister smiled graciously. She wore a white sheath dress. Her scarf was yellow gauze and she had a matching satin hairband looped around one wrist. "Can I sit down?"

Seifer grudgingly made room. Ellone sat neatly next to him, gathering her shawl closely around her shoulders. None of the Estharians gave her a second glance. Seifer almost envied her ability to fit into the city before he reminded himself that he would never want to be that boring.

"Did you get the letters?"

Seifer shied Fuujin's latest in the direction of the nearest litter bin. It ricocheted around the rim and slam-dunked itself into the garbage with a thud. "Yeah, thanks."

"They don't seem to be making you very happy."

"Nothing, Forget it." Seifer told her.

Ellone tucked her heels under the seat. She was wearing perfume, something light and flowery. "Did my dad sort you some work out?"

"Laguna? Yeah."

"He's good like that. He likes to do favours." Her wing of dark hair fell over her face, so like Laguna's, and she gave him another inscrutable smile. Strange, Seifer thought, He'd have guessed at a relationship to Squall even without knowing she was his half-sister, but the girl looked so like Laguna it was impossible they were unrelated.

"And he's got his own reasons." he said.

"That, too." She smiled, sweetly.

Seifer scratched at his scar. The dry, hot air was making it itch and he almost regretted leaving Kadowaki's ointment back at Garden. "He told me about you and Odine." he said, half-expecting her to shut down and storm off.

Ellone did neither of those things. She unwrapped her hair band from around her wrist and scraped her hair back with both hands, then looked at him so placidly that Seifer felt almost mean for asking. "Oh, that. That was a long time ago now. I don't think of it much."

"Was it bad?"

Ellone blinked and looked away from Seifer. Her eyes travelled over the walkway and fixed on the city horizon, with a look in them that made Seifer shiver. "I remember that he scared me. Everybody was nice enough, but it's a frightening thing when you're a little child, to be taken away from your family. I remember that I was glad when Laguna came to fetch me. He really was the only father I had, after my mother died. Kiros and Ward, they were my family." She turned and looked at him, stray stands of dark hair blowing over her heart-shaped face. "Your Edea, she came later. I don't really want to talk about it."

Seifer shrugged.

Ellone pushed her hair back and smiled, bright and brittle. "So you're going? On the mission?"

Seifer picked the plastic laminate coating from the bench with his fingernails. "I guess. I'm meeting somebody in a museum in a few days to go over a few things. It'll be fun."

"Not my idea of fun."

Seifer grinned. "It isn't everybody's." He decided to try his luck again, couldn't hurt, the way that it was going. "You know, I might die."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It'd be great to have a good last memory, you know?" Seifer would have reached over to touch her hand, just to be sure that there could be no mistake about what he meant, but right then a piece of laminate slid beneath his fingernail and he had enough difficulty stopping himself from swearing and stuffing the offending finger in his mouth.

Ellone smiled at him and then leant forwards and kissed him, very gently, on the forehead. "A good effort, but you're not my type. I like nice Estharian boys."

Seifer pretended to look hurt. "I could be a nice guy."

"You're not Estharian."

"I could change my nationality."

"You're my little brother's friend."

"I'm not his friend." Seifer said indignantly. "And you look too damn much like him anyway."

Ellone smiled. "Lots of people say that. Anyway, nice meeting you. I hope everything goes okay. And I'm almost certain that you won't get killed." She smiled at him sympathetically, and the expression on that perfect face made Seifer wish that he'd tried harder.

"Can't you go into the future and watch?"

"It doesn't work like that. But I _am_ sure that I don't sleep with you." Ellone smiled at him, wide and bright and breezy. "I'm on my lunchbreak. I have to go. Take care." And then she was off, before Seifer could even say goodbye back, with a little wave and a wriggle in her sensible flat-soled shoes that had half of the Estharian guys turning to look at her.

Seifer watched her go and yanked the piece of plastic out from under his nail. It stung far too much for something too tiny and left a small purple mark to match his training bruises. He settled back on the seat, and grinned.

It was nice to have somebody in Esthar that was concerned about him, even if it was that jerk Squall's sister. Odine just cared about Seifer's brain, he didn't much care what happened to the rest of him. And Laguna was an unknown quantity. He searched his brain for a reason for Laguna's help and came up with nothing.

He thought of that often over the next couple of days as he wandered the streets. Odine had shut himself up in his lab with his rats and his textbooks for company, and given Seifer strict instructions not to disturb him. That was fine with Seifer, so he walked, and he watched the city.

The Estharians were becoming visibly more alarmed at the prospect of having their city invaded by hundreds of hungry mercenaries. Seifer watched as they copied their signs and regulations in three different languages, as a huge marquee went up in the town's central square, as the lifters were conscripted to bring bundles of bedding and tables and crates of food for the mercenaries. No Gardens had appeared on the horizon, but there were already berths marked out. One was in a playing field, and there were two extra-wide moorings allocated in the harbour. Seifer remembered Quistis telling him of the Garden's first arrival at Fisherman's Harbour, and sniggered. Serve the Estharians right if they all got flooded out.

The Esthar Museum of Science And Technology was one of the few public buildings not being used as a billet, probably because the Estharians were worried about the presence of soldiers in the vicinity of so many rare and delicate things. The building was quiet and nearly empty around Seifer as he made his way up to the fifth floor for Laguna's rendezvous. He hadn't bothered to visit any of the city's museums before. Museums were not really _him_. The neatness and the order and the quiet, well –behaved people made him want to neck half a bottle of vodka and listen to bands with umlauts in their names.

He wandered the halls past trays of specimens and gleaming wooden cabinets filled with tiny and intricate machines, and climbed the first flight of stairs he found. The first floor of the museum was as opulent as the ground level, all plush carpets and brilliant lighting that glinted off every polished surface. There were counters of rare woods and chandeliers more elaborate than the largest in the Deling City Hotel.

The second floor was slightly shabbier, with an air of holding all of the older exhibits that had been moved out as newer and more exciting machines took their place. The third floor held cases of moth-eaten stuffed animals. The cupboards on the fourth floor contained nothing except small white cards reading '_sorry for your inconvenience, but this exhibit has been removed for repairs' _

The stairs leading to the fifth floor were painted blue and cast from chipped concrete. A chipped wooden arrow hung askew on the wall, pointing upwards. It was the only sign that the floor was open for visitors. There were none, anyway. The stairs were quiet enough to hear the dust settle.

The ex-knight shrugged and followed the arrow, boots brushing dusty concrete. His watch read five-pm precisely as he entered the fifth floor's only gallery.

It was almost exactly not what he had expected.

Like the lower floors, the room was large, and dimly lit, and filled with glass cases. The cabinets were old, archaically styled. Their glass fronts were grimed with several years' worth of dirt. Several sleek outlines were just visible though the cobwebs. Seifer recognised a few, and grinned.

No wonder the room was tucked away on the top floor. The Estharians hated weaponry, but they had a place for everything, didn't they?

He scrubbed dust from the nearest case with the back of his arm.. An array of sleek blades lay on moth-eaten velvet cushions, dappled and curved like Deft's Damascene steel swords. Next to them lay a pair of shorter sabres, their handles wrapped in pebbled monster skin and their scabbards carved with fantastic sea-monsters.

Seifer's hands flexed, imagining how the blades would feel. They looked perfectly balanced, but it was hard to tell from outside the case. He itched to smash the glass, liberate a few swords, and try the things out. It was a waste, really; they needed to be used.

_Hell, Esthar's got enough weaponry in this one room to outfit half the city, and they still hire mercenaries..._

_Dumbasses._

There were guns in the next case, pretty and useless and old, the kind that took half an hour to load and misfired more often than not. The neighbouring cabinet held fantastically shaped shurikens, the next antique rifles. There seemed to be no order to the displays, but Seifer didn't care.

He was half way along the line of cases before he saw the gunblade and forgot about all of the other exhibits. He would have recognised those lines anywhere, despite the dust, despite the fact that the only other visitor in the room was standing right in front of it. It drew him like a junction, and so he walked over and peered over the shoulder of a woman wearing blue Estharian robes. The case was even filthier than any of the other others in the room, the gunblade was just visible.

Seifer was disappointed. The weapon had none of Hyperion's sleek grace, and it lacked the Lionheart's chunky flowing lines. There were cogs and gears welded to the handle and the blade looked far too long for balance. Seifer wondered about the gears. Maybe they were some kind of primitive rifling apparatus?

He pushed closer to look at the weapon, mumbling "Scuse me" to the Estharian woman standing in front of it. She ignored him.

Seifer tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, lady. I'm trying to see here."

The woman turned with perfect poise, glanced over her shoulder at him and said in a cut-glass voice "Not right now, Seifer. I'm waiting for someone."

_Quistis_, he thought, and then _holy fuck._

Seifer had no idea what his own face was doing, but he had the pleasure of watching Quistis's expression change in the glass. The composed mask she always wore dissolved into a rictus of absolute horror for a second before she collected herself and turned to face him. Her body language was rigid as hell, her spectacles cold little circles of glass.

They both stared at each other, wary, and careful. Seifer used the time to examine Quistis. She hadn't changed much, except for the robes, and she wasn't wearing his necklace, whatever Fuu had said. Her lips tightened as she noticed his scrutiny.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Seifer dug his hands into his pockets and leaned up against the cabinet, pretending an ease he certainly did not feel. "I'm meeting someone."

Quistis's voice sharpened. "You are not."

Seifer shrugged and they both stood there for a second, still as exhibits. Quistis brushed cobwebs from the sleeve of her deep blue robes. Seifer inclined his head and motioned at the outfit.

"What're you wearing those for? They don't suit you."

Quistis ignored him. "_Laguna_ sent you?" she said in a this-can't-possibly-be-true voice.

"Yeah. He didn't say I'd be working with you SeeDs, else I'd have said no. I mean, there's no point. Squall already co-opted me, but hell, if his daddy wants to pay me twice then that's fine." He reached into his pocket and brought out Laguna's dog-tags. The pendant hung between them both, swinging gently like the timer on an unexploded bomb.

Quistis took the necklace from him and bent forwards to examine it. Her hair slid over her shoulders in thick honey-blond locks and she pushed it back in irritation. "This is his." She tossed the tags back to him.

Seifer caught them. "Yeah."

Quistis shook her head. Her hands dug deeply into the pockets of her robe and she met his eyes for the first time. "No."

Seifer raised his eyebrows. "No what?" He stuffed the tags back into his overloaded pocket. They threatened to slip out so he picked them up and looped them around his neck. Laguna's tokens didn't seem to have helped much. His hopes of monster-slaying were fading by the second.

"No." Quistis told him. "I don't care how much Laguna is paying us, I am not having you on this mission. And that's final."

Seifer bit back the immediate childish retort of _well- I didn't want to go anyway_ and settled on a neutral "That's okay with me. Suits us both."

Quistis raised a fine dark eyebrow. "That's an unexpected relief."

"Then I'm glad." Seifer matched her smouldering stare. His height gave him a moderate advantage, but there was nobody like Quistis for disapproving looks.

"So am I."

"Great."

"I'm glad that you feel that way." Quistis's stare was sapphire-hard and by rights should have left Seifer's smoking shadow on the opposite wall.

"Fine, fuck you."

"No chance. I don't make the same mistake twice."

"Go to hell." Seifer told her. There was no chance of winning an argument with Quistis when she was in this kind of mood. She wielded her tongue as precisely as her whip, and Seifer couldn't compete in that kind of duel. "Or, you know, just go."

To his surprise, Quistis didn't, although her knuckles whitened on the creases of her robe. "What are you doing here?" she asked him.

"I told you, Laguna told me to meet somebody-"

"Not _here_." Quistis's toe tapped on the bare boards, once, twice. She still wore her boots, despite the traditional dress. "Here. Here in Esthar."

"It just happened."

Quistis gestured to the shuttered windows, and Seifer presumed, the city outside them. "It's not your kind of place."

"I know." Seifer said with heartfelt feeling. It would have been hard to imagine a place that was less him.

"Where are you staying?"

"At the lab. You?"

Quistis angled her head. Her eyes sharpened, diamond instead of cold sapphire. "The lab?"

"Yeah, you know, Odine's lab? Near the palace?"

"Odine's lab?" Quistis said again. Her voice was slow, precise, but urgent; something frightened there, under her I-don't-care-what-you-do facade.

"Yeah." Something was wrong. Quistis didn't usually repeat herself this much.

"What are you doing with Odine?"

Seifer shrugged. It would have taken time to explain, so he said nothing. The voices of other visitors drifted up the staircase, quiet and distant in the dusty room, and faded away again.

"Is this about the Sorceresses? Or the Knights?"

Seifer shrugged.

Quistis sighed "Some advice, whether you want it or not. Don't have anything to do with Odine. In fact, get out of there as fast as you can. He won't help you." She tucked her hands in the wide sleeves of her robes and stared at him challengingly.

Seifer folded his arms and shifted, still leaning against the case. The glass creaked in protest. "How do you know?"

"He didn't help Rinoa." Quistis said, as if that had anything to do with anything.

"I didn't come because of me."

"So why are you here? I mean, it's great that you're finally realising you've got a problem, but-"

"I haven't got a problem. And I went to see Edea."

Quistis angled her head, removed her spectacles and polished them on her sleeve. She blew hair out of her way, glanced at the spectacles and replaced them on her nose, all without looking at Seifer. "Whose idea was that?" she said, still without looking at him. "And how did you end up here from Centra?"

"Mine." Seifer said, then; "Squall's. He just wanted to make me think it was mine."

Quistis almost smiled.

"So I went to the Centra ruins, and Odine turned up. I think he came for Edea, so we told him no fucking way."

"We?"

"Me and Zell. Zell drove the boat," Seifer added by way of explanation and continued on with his story. "Anyway, then Odine tried to get me to come here for his research. I told him no at first, but then I thought it might help me figure out what's wrong with Edea." He bit a nail, thoughtfully. "I figure that if anybody knew anything, it'd be him. And I promised. I promised Edea I'd fix her."

Quistis made a minute adjustment to her glasses. "That was probably a mistake." she said, without condemnation.

"It's what she needed. Anyway, what the fuck would you know? It got bad again at the ruins. Thought I was going crazy, and she did too. I'd have tried anything to help her."

Quistis frowned. "Odine is the last person on the planet I'd approach for help. Let me guess-things haven't worked out how you expected?"

Seifer sighed. "Do they ever? Hell, I'm stuck here, and Odine keeps doing these tests. He's getting pissed off, because whatever he wanted to get out of me, it isn't working. And I still have no idea what the hell he's trying to do with me, _or_ with Edea. "

"That doesn't surprise me." Quistis told him. Her expression was intent and focused, as if she was taking notes in the privacy of her head. Seifer had no idea how much importance she was ascribing to each part of his tale. He had no idea whether she was even listening. Hell, he never could work out how her brain worked half the time.

"So you just agreed to come to Esthar with Odine?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you know what he did?"

"Pretty much." Seifer admitted.

"About Rinoa?"

"I guess."

"About Adel?"

"Laguna told me."

Quistis sighed as if she couldn't believe just how stupid Seifer was. "You didn't wonder why he wanted to see you?"

"It's research or something. And don't worry, I can look after myself." Seifer said in the face of all evidence.

"I wasn't." Quistis's voice was not loud, but in the empty room it rang out, each cut-glass syllable raising dust from the cases.

"Look, if you want to help me-help _her_-then you help. If you don't, then leave me alone. I've been managing. And okay, maybe I don't have any idea what I'm doing but at least I'm doing _something_."

"Have you found anything so far?

"No."

"No, you haven't looked, or no, you haven't found anything?"

"I've found things. They just don't make sense. Look, this kind of stuff I can do." He motioned to the cabinets full of weapons. "Odine, though, no chance. They didn't teach us that kind of stuff at Garden."

"Actually, there is a bit of basic neuroscience in the medical classes. But you-"

"Didn't listen. Yeah, I know."

"Odine won't make things easy. He is not going to help you out of human kindness, if he even can help. Which I doubt." Quistis added. She looked thoughtful in the dusty bronze light, completely focused on this new problem.

Seifer guessed she'd just made up her mind to help him. He slid the dogtags through his fingers in an unconscious mockery of Laguna "So you'll come and have a look."

"Yes."

"What about the fighting?"

"We'll see." Quistis said abstractedly. "But what we really need to do is figure out what Odine wants you for. And then we can try to work out what Odine used Edea for, and then maybe, just maybe we can fix her. You've been going about this all wrong."

"No surprise there, then." Seifer said cynically. "Look, it's all about some study-"

"Maybe." Quistis said. She bit her nails and managed to make the gesture elegant, which Seifer thought which must have been a testament to something, possibly his own obsession.

Not for the first time, he wondered where she'd been. Nowhere sunny, that was for sure. Her pale skin was so fair as to be almost translucent, like weapons oil spilled over paper. A very few stray freckles stood out on the bridge of her nose; alien invaders stranded in a hostile environment.

"What kind of tests is he doing?"

"Bloods." Seifer told her. "Some brain scans. Hasn't found much, Drives him crazy.

"What did the scans look like?"

"They looked _like brains_, Quis. You're asking the wrong person."

Quistis frowned. "Then I'll need to see whatever data you have. Maybe the machines, too, if you can manage it. If you could get me into the lab that would be good. If you can't then hard copies are the next best thing"

"That shouldn't be much of a problem. You doing anything right now?"

Quistis looked puzzled. She glanced at her watch. The golden sunlight creeping through the museum's blinds was darkening to a lager-coloured amber. Seifer judged that it was about six. "No-"

"That's fine then. You're not wearing any insignia? No logos, right. Don't want them to let you know you're a SeeD."

"Now? Are you sure that's wise?" Quistis said, in a tone of voice that indicated that she didn't think it was at all.

"Yeah. Odine's spent the last few days in his study. He sends out for food. And books. Nobody's going to be around. Nobody will care."

"Do you know what he's up to?"

"Haven't a clue." Seifer told her. It was true, sort of, and it was hard enough trying to second-guess Quistis, let alone Odine.

"How will we get in?"

"Through the front door. It'll be easy."

Ten minutes later, they discovered that it wasn't.

* * *

"Come _on_."

The Estharian guard folded his arms resolutely. "No. Sorry, Seifer. I mean, I'd like to, but I don't think so."

Seifer glanced at the doors, which stayed resolutely closed. They looked pretty easy to break into; thin clear glass with the Odine Laboratories logo embossed half each side of the opening, but Odine had invested some serious money in security. They'd be hard to break. A well-placed Thundaga might have melted them into slag, but Seifer was fresh out of battle magic.

"Don't fuck around, Flex."

The guard tapped at a computer screen. "Orders are orders."

"I'll give you back that stuff I won last week." Seifer tried. As bribes went, it was not the most appealing, given that he'd won about five gil and a battered Estharian militia helmet that was far too small for him, but it was worth a try.

"Sorry. You can come in. But no other SeeDs are allowed in the lab."

Seifer glanced at Quistis, who was leaning against one of the pillars of the gateway. She wore her blue robes and a sardonic expression. The gate gaped wide above her head like an open maw. "She's not a SeeD."

The other guard gaped. "Are you kidding? Look, that's Quistis Trepe!"

Flex backed his buddy up. "Yeah, we can't let her in." He turned to Quistis. "We apologise, ma'am,and everything. No can do, though. I'm sure you understand. And, uh, could you maybe leave your autograph? Would you mind? It's for my brother."

Seifer couldn't believe it. "You're _kidding_."

The other guard scowled. "You don't even have a brother."

"Brother. Cross my heart. Totally."

Quistis smiled faintly. "Leave it." she told Seifer, glancing sympathetically at the guards. One pale hand flickered against the dark fabric of her robe. The ex-knight recognised the SeeD-sign for '_we'll come back later'_.

Flex blushed. "We're real sorry, like."

"Odine's orders, man. Nothing we can do." the other guard chimed in like a depressing Centra chorus.

Seifer leant over the desk. "Ah, fuck this. Look, it's official business."

He noticed that both of the guards were looking at him, instead of Quistis. A second later he realised that they weren't looking at him at all; they were staring at Laguna's necklace.

Nobody wore dogtags in Esthar, nobody, that was, apart from one person. They weren't part of SeeD issue kit and hadn't been since the first wars. Only veterans wore them. There were only three veterans in Esthar and out of the three, only one wore them all the time.

Flex swallowed. "Sorry, sir. We had no idea this was official."

"You didn't-" Seifer started to say, then changed it to "It isn't. I mean, it is. Very."

Quistis straightened up from the pillar in a smooth motion that reminded Seifer of gunpowder pouring from a jar. "So we can go in?"

"Of course, ma'am. Anything for Laguna."

Seifer tucked the tags under the neck of his shirt. They tickled, cool against his skin. "Do me a favour and don't mention this to Odine. He'll go crazy."

Flex grinned. "No problem." He stabbed at a button and the glass doors slid open with a hiss. "Top secret. We understand."

Quistis came up beside him and gave both guards a small smile made them both blush. "We'll mention your co-operation to the President."

"Yeah. He'll be very grateful." Seifer adlibbed. He grabbed Quistis by the arm and they both walked in, between the two halves of the lab logo and into the carpeted corridor beyond. He expected somebody to notice, to call Quistis back and demand a permit and say that they'd changed their mind, but nobody did. They skirted the lifter in the front hall and entered the lab proper, a confection of green glass and floor tiles that reminded Seifer of an aquarium. The guards' awed voices faded out. Quistis picked Seifer's hand up in two fingers and removed it from her arm.

"Don't try anything." she hissed. "I'm not sleeping with you again, you know."

Seifer shook her hand away. "Did I say anything about sleeping?"

"You know what I mean." Quistis snapped. "This is business only. This is the lab?"

"One of them, yeah."

Quistis glanced around at the grey computer terminals littering every wall. Her eyes turned suddenly unfocused behind her spectacles, as if she was looking through Seifer instead of at him. It was something that the ex-knight had seen her do many times on missions, an unselfconscious alertness that took everything in, dissected and analysed it and missed nothing. He recognised that look. From now it was all going to be business. And that was a pity, because it was fun to piss her off.

"We'll go upstairs, past the labs, so I can show you the machines. And I got to collect the printouts I made."

Quistis nodded. Her head swivelled from side to side, taking everything in. She drifted over to one of the workbenches, examined one of the machines, and moved on.

Seifer watched her. "So, any ideas?"

Quistis shook her head.

"I don't think these are the right machines. We need to go upstairs." he told her.

"Have they got CCTV?"

Seifer wondered how to explain Odine's bugs to her. "Not exactly. They've got cameras, though."

"What if the guards notice me looking at things?" She didn't seem alarmed by the idea; it was just a vague possibility to be prepared for

"Then I'll just tell them chemistry equipment gets you really hot or something. Don't worry about it. They think we're on some kind of mission from Hyne."

Quistis didn't bother to reply. Seifer watched the movement of her body under her clothes as she leafed through stacks of printouts and examined flasks of mysterious liquid. The enveloping robes were sexier than he'd thought. Maybe the Estharian girly posters had something after all. Or maybe he was just desperate.

Must be desperation. Sure to be.

Quistis looked up from the machine she was examining, something with cogs and calibrated dials. Locks of blonde hair trailed over her shoulder and she swept them absently away from her face. "This is no good. Where did Odine do the tests?"

"His private lab's upstairs." Seifer led the way back to the lifter. The low seat was empty as they both took their places, Quistis geometrically opposite Seifer, the furthest she could get from him without falling off. It was a message of sorts, if not an especially subtle one.

"It's quiet."

"Always is. They're scientists. They clock off at five, all except Odine, and he's off torturing interns in his office or rats or whatever he does in there."

Quistis smiled. "I'm not complaining." She pulled a small pad of lined paper and a pen from one of the pockets of her voluminous robes and started scribbling notes in shorthand. Seifer glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder but made out no more than a few words. Something about hippocampi and cholinergic pathways, whatever the fuck they were.

Seifer guided them both through the corridors of the lab until they reached his room. "Wait here." he told Quistis, ducked into his room and grabbed the printouts from underneath his mattress. The stack of paper was smaller then he remembered them being. Maybe some of them had fallen from the roof while he was reading.

Quistis hadn't even begun to look bored by the time he reappeared. "Are those the research documents?"

Seifer shoved the printouts into her arms. "All yours."

Quistis nudged her spectacles up with the knuckle of one finger and began to leaf through them. "Interesting."

Seifer hit the handle again and the door hissed shut again, closing on the nondescript little room. "Just wait a minute, though. I'll take you up past the lab, on the way to the roof." He gestured for her to follow and she fell in behind him, kilting up the hem of her skirt to keep it from dragging on the floor and reading as she walked.

"The roof?"

"It's the only place there's no bugs." Seifer told her. "I can't get into his lab at the moment. I'm working on that. You'll just have to look through the door. That okay?"

"It'll have to be." said Quistis briefly. She said nothing more until they reached the lab. It was empty. The lights were doused, the computers lifeless apart from the red and green splinters of power lines. Odine wasn't there.

Seifer thanked his lucky stars and motioned Quistis forwards. "This is it."

Quistis handed him the printouts, knotted her hands in her long sleeves to guard against thumbprints and stared through the door at the machines inside, turning her head away every few seconds to breathe so her breath didn't condense on the glass. It took her about a minute, and then she nodded, took the papers back from him and stepped back from the glass. "I'd like to get inside."

"Maybe later. Has it helped?"

Quistis shrugged briefly. "I don't know yet. I recognise some of the machines he's using-they're pretty much like some they've got in the Deling-City-that-was hospital. Import stuff. Cat scanner. Magnetic resonance imaging. Positron-emission-topography."

"You what?"

"Odine must have loved having you to stay."

"It's been an experience." Seifer told her. He opened the roof door and stood aside as she climbed the stairs, trying to fight back hope that maybe Quistis would know something. Maybe the papers he'd stolen would all make sense to her. Maybe she'd be able to fix Edea. Maybe.

On the one hand, he didn't need any favours from Quistis, not now and not ever. But Quistis _was_ the smartest person he knew. Maybe she'd be able to look at Odine's machines for him, figure out what was going on.

And he….hell, he still liked her.

* * *

Apologies for the delay. Finals revision, family issues and job seeking got in the way, and there are more important things than fanfiction. (yeah, heresy, I know) But I passed my finals, so now Satellites is back. I've written a good chunk of the next chapter already, so it shouldn't be too long before that one's posted. Lots of Quistis, more Odine, Seifer finally makes a very important decision, and some sex.

The Estharian museum is based on a combination of the Natural History museum in New York, the weird ethnographic museum in Cambridge whose name I can't remember, the Victoria and Albert Museum (for the swords) and the Science Museum in London, which I love.

Reviews:

Altol: Thanks! Hope the blurb above explains for the delay in updating. What are you up to? any new projects?

Ardwynna Morrigu: thanks for you review. This will be finished I promise.

Asga: Ta!

Ash: hope you like this one too.

Chi: well, I wouldn't want to kill you in a _bad_ way.:)

Ghost140:hope this cheers you up.

Jack Hanek: There is a reason for the stapler thing. I'm kind of working up to the big ending now, which is good as this fic has taken far too long. Pretty much figured it out though, now. Lots of action and plot and dastardly deeds.

Quistis88: Ta!

Ranman koi shiyo: wow: lots of reading. I do amaze myself with my ability to write crap sometimes.

Selphie fan: There will be more Selphie later, I promise.

Sheep the adventurer: more Seifer and Laguna. I love writing that guy!

Superviolist: good luck with the finals!

Zoro: good things come to those who wait. Like Guinness.


	16. Chapter Fifteen: Dream Just Right

Recovering The Satellites

I've been up all night,

I might sleep all day.

Get your dreams just right

And let them slip away.

Fix your hair just right

Put your jeans on tight,

Wear a dress, so I can get it off real easy.

'Cause I've been thinking I'd

Like to see your eyes

Open up real wide the minute that you see me.

Counting Crows: Up All Night.(edit)

Do you give good head?

Am I good in bed?

I don't know, I guess so.

I don't sleep, I dream.

I'd settle for a cup of coffee

But you know what I really need.

REM-I Don't Sleep, I Dream.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen: Dream Just Right.

* * *

Viewed from the laboratory tower, three hundred feet above street level, sunlight bleached all colour from the skyscrapers of Esthar. 

Quistis shaded her eyes with her hand and spun, enjoying the three-hundred-and-sixty degree view. The iridescent towers glittered and gleamed in the sun. Far out to the west the desert shone an intense white, light reflected from the barren plains of the salt mines. She identified the burnished bronze tower of the Presidential palace, the bustling port; the arcs of Esthar's main highways mapping out the city.

"So what'd you think?" Seifer asked her.

"Nice view." Quistis told him. "Great tactical position." She stood hip-shot on the edge of the roof, balancing the thick pile of papers on her waist. The pale underskirt of her robes flapped in the wind, gathering brick-dust and grime.

Seifer shrugged. "It's okay." He looked troubled, eyes frowning under the band of a dark knitted hat pulled crookedly over his forehead. The beanie was obviously meant to conceal his scar but it only made it stand out more. He looked like a very casual cat-burglar.

Quistis smiled. "Like the hat."

"Fuck you." Seifer said without malice. He reached up, pulled the cap off and ran both hands over his scalp. Underneath the hat his hair was cropped suede-short.

"You cut your hair." Quistis commented.

"Yeah. Like it?"

"No. It makes you look like a thug."

"More of one?"

Quistis ignored him. She gathered her robes behind her and sat down in the wedge of shade created between the water tanks and the chimney. Seifer shrugged and settled himself out in full sun on the concrete.

"I'll be a while." Quistis told him, and immediately lost herself, skim-reading with practised speed. Even so, it took her half an hour to work through the documents Seifer had brought, and after she'd finished she was no nearer to answering his questions than when she'd started.

The notes troubled her. They felt _wrong_. Quistis knew that part of it was sheer frustration at her ignorance of the subject but there was something else. She'd expected more from Odine.

She spun the pencil between her fingers and glanced over at Seifer over the top of her glasses. He looked asleep –at least, his eyes were closed and one arm was crooked behind his head- but Quistis knew him well enough to know that he was only pretending. His clothes were new and almost clean (Odine's lab must have a laundry service; Seifer had never knowingly cleaned anything in his life.) He looked unarmed, unusual for Seifer, but in line with the strict Estharian weapons policies. Hyne knew Quistis had had to produce enough ID to sink a boat before they'd let her bring Save The Queen through customs.

She wondered how Seifer had ever made it through with Hyperion and decided that she didn't want to know.

_Honestly. _

There was something infuriating about the man and not the least of that was the fact that she was undeniably attracted to him. For instance, when she'd met him in the museum a clear ninety-nine percent of her brain had been thinking _Oh Hyne not you again. _The _other_ one percent had been drooling with its mouth open.

It really was unfair. Quistis had schooled herself to think objectively, and she was trying hard to be logical about this whole thing, but that one-percent of her brain persisted in thinking inappropriate thoughts.

Take now, for instance. No matter how hard she tried to keep her mind on her work Seifer was just there, intruding, even though he was lying perfectly still and to the untrained eye not really doing much at all.

Quistis set her jaw and returned to her work. Some unresolved sexual tension was obviously interfering with her brain activity.

It had almost been a relief in the museum when he'd told her that he wanted something. Quistis could deal with simple work. There was no need for everything to get emotional and complicated again. She could see no reason why _anything_ should ever get emotional and complicated.

She added a final note to her written conclusion and poked Seifer with her toe. He rolled over and raised himself on one elbow, eyes narrowed against the sunlight.

"Can I ask you some questions?"

"Go ahead."

"Has Odine told you why he wants to study you?

Seifer shrugged. He knotted both hands behind his head and leaned back, staring at the sky. "He told me some shit about sorceresses generating their own power, but that was a while back, and it was probably crap. Do I look like a fucking light-bulb to you?"

Quistis had to admit not. "Anything else?"

"He said that he'd come up with some hypos about knights or something. Told me he wanted to find out if they were true."

"Hypotheses?"

"Yeah. But they must not be working, 'cause he's getting desperate." He rolled over into a sitting position. Anybody else but Quistis would have missed that tiny shift in weight to accommodate a gunblade that wasn't there. "Not as half as desperate as he'll be when my fucking patience runs out, though. You know what the worst of it is?"

"What?"

"I didn't even think about what I was doing before I arrived. I thought it'd be easy." He grinned ruefully, sharp as a blade, and pulled a crumpled packet of Lucky Strikes from his jeans. Silver foil glinted in the sun, mirrored by the adamantine chain around his neck as Laguna's dog-tags caught the light.

Quistis gestured at the cigarettes. "I thought you quit."

"You thought wrong, then." Seifer tossed the empty cardboard packet over the edge of the building. As it floated, spinning, into space, he cupped the cigarette in his hands and lit it. "Hey, last packet."

"I very much doubt that." Quistis said disapprovingly. She would have liked Seifer to contract some horrible smoking-related disease, which she, of course, would remain virtuously free from. (Quistis's only vices were diet soda, GFs and breath mints). No such luck. Seifer was as healthy as a junkyard dog.

Seifer grinned and exhaled, making a point of blowing the smoke away from Quistis. "Odine, though. I'd swear he knows exactly what I'm here for and what I want and he knows I don't have a fucking hope in hell of doing anything about it. It pisses me off. And he makes me feel dumb as shit."

Quistis almost smiled. "I don't think you're the only one."

"I failed my SeeD exams three times." Seifer said reflectively. "And I don't mean I couldn't be bothered. I mean, I didn't bottle out and spend two hours drawing a sketch of _Wilfred Owen Experiencing The Horror Of The Trenches At First Hand _like that asshole in fourth year. I just fucked up."

Quistis realised that Odine's intellectual attitude had struck a sore point with Seifer. Unwise, probably, unless the scientist was hoping to collect some sore points of his own. "You're not stupid." she told him. "You just don't work. And if you want to join the club of people who aren't as clever as Odine, then you're sitting next to one."

Seifer smiled sardonically, as if he couldn't give a rat's ass for any of Quistis Trepe's attempts to make him feel better. "So does that stuff I found mean anything to you? Did you find anything out?"

"Nothing much." Quistis spread the papers out at her feet. She balanced the toe of a heeled boot on them to keep them down. "It looks like Odine's using you to write a special interest paper or maybe a one-off study. I don't know much about medicine, but even I can see that he can't make any conclusions from what he's got. You can't see some kinds of brain damage on scans, and there are other variables. Edea must have used GFs, and so have you. Guardian Forces change the brain, there's no getting around that."

Seifer frowned, throwing the scar between his eyes into sharp relief. "How'd you know she has?"

"How'd you know she hasn't?"

Seifer shrugged and scowled. "Guess I don't." He picked up the nearest piece of paper and scowled at it like somebody trying to interpret a foreign language. "So you don't think Odine can fix her? You think he was lying?" His voice was level but his eyes were cold. Quistis got the feeling that she better answer his question very, very carefully.

"I don't know. Have you asked?"

Seifer snorted. "He wouldn't give me a straight answer if I did."

Quistis shrugged. A shadow passed over the sun and she shaded her eyes to seek it out. She relaxed as she identified an avian rather than a monstrous silhouette.

Seifer slouched against one of the water tanks, ignoring the peeling paint and blowing smoke-rings. "How'd you know this shit anyway?"

Quistis picked up the sheaf of notes and paged through it, hunting a reference. "I used to help Dr Kadowaki with her science projects. She publishes papers in the trauma medicine journals."

"So what's that got to do with anything?"

"You can't just do research any way you like. You need references to back up your theories. Sources. Statistical analysis." She passed a sheet to Seifer, who switched hands with his cigarette and took it. "Unless you've missed something, Odine's doing none of that. I can't tell you if he's helping or not, but he must be studying you out of personal interest. There's no way he can publish it. And there's no way I can see that this can possibly help Edea. "

Seifer glanced at the printouts and looked away again. "Shit. What do I tell her?" He flicked ash from his cigarette with a gesture of irritation. His eyes were dark.

Quistis, for once in her life, was at a loss. "I don't know." She took the sheet from Seifer, who was holding it hard enough to crumple the paper, and gathered the notes together. "Edea's not your fault, though. She's an adult too and it's her right to deal with her situation in whatever way she sees fit."

Seifer rested the heel of his palm on his cheekbone, looking at nothing she could see. The cigarette in his other hand was nearly down to the filter and he crushed it on the bricks as Quistis watched. His fingers were stained faintly yellow; he smelt of nicotine and sweat, and of despair.

"I'm sorry. I mean it." She was surprised to find that she did. Back in Garden, she had always hoped that one day Seifer would learn that not everything could be solved by fighting. Now it looked like he had, and she missed it.

_How stupid of me…_

She followed his line of sight to the bleak desert, salt lakes shining like silver under the sun. The beginning of the FH bridge was just visible, if she squinted. A daymoon hung low over the horizon. Quistis began to have an inkling of what the silence meant.

"Oh, no."

"No what?" Seifer looked briefly at her, but his gaze returned to the desert.

"You re not leaving again." Quistis said flatly. "There must be some way we can sort this out."

Seifer shivered. There was something about being read correctly that bugged him, she knew. "Did I _say_ I was leaving?"

"You'll never be able to cross the desert."

"You made it across the salt lakes." Seifer countered.

Quistis remembered that trip, and winced. It had been a nightmare journey, nothing but shining salt and monster bones; Squall and Zell and Quistis taking turn to carry Rinoa. "That was before the Lunar Cry."

"I can deal with monsters."

"Okay then. Let's be optimistic and assume you don't die in the desert. What then? Garden won't be there. Where would you go? FH? Galbadia?"

"Maybe."

"Because that's a _great_ idea."

"If I didn't know you better, Trepe, I'd think you cared."

"I stopped caring in Balamb." Quistis told him. "You're on your own."

Seifer jammed the butt of his cigarette into a crack between the bricks. "I said I'd fix her." he muttered.

"We'll find somebody else."

Seifer gave her a look of contempt. "There is nobody else. Odine's it. He's fucked up and he's an asshole and he's all there is."

"There might be." Quistis said. She racked her brains for anything to stop Seifer from doing something he might not live to regret. "There must be, somewhere-"

"I fucked up again, Trepe. I'm better off gone. _You're_ better off with me gone."

The logical part of Quistis's brain said _You might very well be right_. The illogical one-per-cent, acting on memories of white waterless desert, Abadons and bones, shot to its feet and grabbed for Seifer's arm. Seifer swatted her hand away with a flick of his wrist. The momentum cracked Quistis's elbow against the brickwork. Her hand opened and a couple of reams of Odine's latest research work went soaring off into the Estharian stratosphere like a flock of paper seagulls. The slight breeze that swayed the building's tall aerials took the sheets up and swept them out over the city.

Quistis lunged for the last sheets of paper and missed. Her hands closed on empty air. Seifer grabbed her by her bad arm and she nearly hit him, wrenching away from his grasp to grab the safety rail. "Hyne." she swore and stood on the very edge of the tower, rubbing her elbow. Shadows swooped and soared as the city's feral vultures gathered, hoping for food. "Seifer?"

"It doesn't matter." He stood with his arms folded and watched the papers drift away, an ironic smile on his face. "They're not much use now."

"You shouldn't go." Quistis said flatly. "You're better off at Garden."

Seifer watched the vultures dive on the paper with an abstracted expression on his face. "I'll make a deal. I promise to stay here until after the festival if you let me fight, how about that? I should 've found out what I need by then." He looked absorbed instead of defeated, as if he was back on the battlefield, planning the best way to retaliate. This worried Quistis, but not as much as the prospect of him leaving did. "Of course. We can sort something out, I'm sure. I'll talk with Squall."

"Thanks."

"Seifer?"

"Yeah?"

"You're not planning anything, are you?"

"Me?" Seifer looked innocent. "'Course not."

"_Really_?"

Wouldn't have a chance against Odine at the moment, the way things are."

"You've got weapons?"

Seifer shrugged. "They taped Hyperion."

This did not reassure Quistis. She estimated that it would take him two seconds to remove the tape, even without equipment. And if not, then Seifer was a pretty good blunt instrument all by himself. "Look, forget the notes. Just keep in touch with Balamb. Squall'll want to know how you're getting on." _And tell us before you think about skipping town so I can persuade you out of it_, she thought.

"So what about the fighting, Trepe?"

Quistis agreed without a second thought. She would have agreed to quite a lot if she though that it would keep Seifer in Esthar rather than heading off into some desert with a gunblade and a litre of water. "I'll talk to Squall. It shouldn't be a problem. We start in five days' time. I'm staying at the Presidential Palace, if you ever want to train."

"Yeah. Maybe." Seifer glanced at the setting sun, candy-lighting the skyscrapers with a combination of rose, neon-pink and tangerine. He pushed off from the brick wall and headed for the door. "S' late. See you around, Trepe. I've got stuff to do."

"What about-"

The roof door slammed shut. Quistis heard Seifer's boots thudding down the metal staircase inside, then silence.

She was left alone with the sunset and the bugs. The roof door lock had snapped shut when the door slammed shut behind Seifer. Quistis wasted a few fruitless minutes pulling and cursing at it before a cursory search revealed the roof ladder.

"Seifer?"

No answer.

"Anybody?"

Silence.

Quistis sighed, kilted her Estharian robes up around her legs and began to climb down.

* * *

Seifer climbed up to the roof later, but Quistis had already gone. A cursory glance over the lip of the building revealed an absence of blue-robed bodies littering the streets below, so he figured she must have gotten down okay. It was full dark by then and he stood for a minute, looking out at the lights. He liked the neon. 

There had been a message waiting for him on his computer, brief and to the point, saying that Odine wanted to see him the following morning. Seifer didn't know whether one of the security guards had suffered from a sudden attack of conscience and called in the scientist, or whether it was just coincidence, but it wasn't going to keep him up all night.

Odine had ceased to worry Seifer at the moment he made up his mind.

He was too dumb to do things Odine's way, and it looked like he couldn't do it Quistis's way either. So he'd do it his way, instead, like he should have planned from the start rather than trying to be smart about it.

Seifer's way was simpler, and a lot more fun.

He was looking forwards to it.

The preparations kept him in a good mood all through a mostly sleepless night and right into Odine's meeting. He got up early, trained for a full hour and still managed to fit in breakfast, a shower and a rather half-assed shave before shrugging on his borrowed white coat and making his own way to the lab. The coat snapped out behind him, reminding him of his favourite old leather jacket, mouldering somewhere in Esthar.

_Gotta get me a new one of those…. _

In contract to Seifer's good mood, Odine looked like he had finally cracked. His large ruff was grimy with dirt, darker than Seifer's oldest T-shirts. One corner was bent as if Odine had slept on it, although from the rings under his eyes it looked as if he hadn't slept in weeks. His beard was singed brown at the tips and there were acid holes in his wide sleeves.

He looked up with an expression like a nervous rat as Seifer sat down. "You came!"

Seifer kicked back in the plastic chair. "Yeah. Didn't you send for me?"

Odine looked at the ex-knight with wide eyes. He wore the kind of vacant expression that Seifer had only ever seen on junctioning SeeDs.

S_hit, he's finally lost it. Not that he ever had it in the first place, but still-_

"I vill ask you one more time. You are sure zat you are fine? No memoriez? No dreams? You hav experienced none of these since the fall of ze sorceress? I find zat hard to believe."

Seifer didn't even think twice about lying. He'd learned to stick to a story when he was five. "Nah."

Odine's face crumpled. His skin looked waxy and grey, as if he was missing some vital element. "This iz not what I want to hear. I must have made some mistake. Or maybe you are not useful after all?"

Seifer stretched. "Guess not."

"You hav been sleeping well? Odine asked cunningly.

"Yeah." Seifer lied. He'd had no bad dreams in the last few days; he just plain hadn't been sleeping. Sometimes it was like he just lost the trick of it. He did remember one recurring nightmare, something about Odine chasing him in circles, waving a chainsaw and screaming that he wanted to find out what Seifer was made of, but that was just a normal bad dream. Nothing to be worried about.

The cameras hadn't exactly been helping, either.

Now Seifer knew what to look for, he spotted them easily. There _were_ large bugs in Esthar, the tower lights drew huge moon-moths with a wingspan as big as his hands at dusk, but none of them looked as perfectly insectile as Odine's spy-robots did.

He angled his head and counted how many he could see from his chair. There were two, a large moth and a thin pale-legged spider. The spider might have been real. Entomology was not Seifer's strongpoint.

"Are you sure zat you are sleeping?" Odine asked him again. He pulled a pad of paper towards him as if he was making notes, but the marks he made on the crisp white sheet made no sense.

"I'm sleeping _fine_." He stared at Odine, willing him to contradict him.

The scientist must have known that he wasn't sleeping well, though admitting that would mean confessing that he'd bugged Seifer's room. The bugs were a problem.

It was part of Seifer's plan that the building's security staff remained in ignorance of his machine until the very last moment. He was pretty sure they'd notice if his room became a surveillance black hole. This in turn meant that he couldn't remove all of the cameras from his room, and knowing he could remove the cameras whenever he wanted and not being able to annoyed Seifer almost as much as Odine installing them in the first place. Between covert bug-slaying missions, he wrapped his machine in a plastic bag and duct-taped it to the underside of the toilet cistern. He was pretty sure there were no cameras on the bathroom.

Odine sighed and avoided Seifer's eyes. He gnawed on the end of his pencil like a small, nervous rodent. He looked as if he had aged ten years in the last five days.

Seifer felt almost sorry for him.

Odine had no clue of what the ex-knight was planning, which was just how it should be. An enemy who didn't know he was your enemy was often the best kind to have.

He yawned. "What do you want?"

"You would not understand." Odine said grumpily.

"Try me."

"Very well." Odine said. Underneath his fingers the curled lines of a brain grew on the paper. Seifer wondered if he'd noticed." I am searching for anomalies in ze cerebral cortex and I am not finding zem. As you have deduced my experiments are not going well. Zis brings my entire research area into doubt. With most dire consequences." He was almost crying. "You are not co-operating."

"Hey, can't help it if-"

Odine slammed a fist down on the tabletop so hard that the pencil he was holding snapped and spun away over the desk. The gesture might have intimidated somebody less used to violence than Seifer. "You are not! I study and I write and I test and what do I find? Nothing! I thought I was right. I thought they would believe my theory was perfect, but you-" He seemed to have run out of words to express how uncooperative Seifer was being.

"I what?" Seifer asked him. He raised an eyebrow, would have lit a cigarette, but he'd finally run out. Nicotine withdrawal was the only cloud on his otherwise sunny horizon. "What in Hyne's the matter?"

Odine subsided like a punctured helium balloon. "Thiz makes no sense."

Seifer rolled a pen between his fingers. "Life sucks. You'll get used to it."

The scientist made a sobbing noise and collapsed in a little heap on the desk.

Seifer tipped his head to the side and stared at the Estharian panorama visible through the lab's blue-tinted and breakproofed windows. He zoned out, thinking of Quistis. It had been good to see her again; like the first drink of beer, like the smell of gunpowder on a sunny morning.

_Hell, she probably hired a band and broke out the good wine when she heard I left Garden._

But still, there had been something…. something, there up on the roof, that made Seifer think that he should have kissed her and to hell with it. Sure, she might have slapped his face for him, but she'd probably have enjoyed that too, and for Seifer the kiss would have more than made up for it.

He slid down in his seat and looked across the table at Odine. The little scientist was slumped on the desk with his head in his hands, curled up in a little ball of misery and outlandish clothing, mumbling to himself.

Seifert ignored him. He disassembled a ballpoint pen without looked and concentrated on examining the lab.

As he did so he recalled the dry, papery voice of one long-dead instructor, back when he was a raw, skinny recruit with more balls than sense and less brains than either, saying "_Listen to me. You never see all that you see, but before you're SeeDs you'll see more in one single glance than some people see in a lifetime." _

Seifer, being fourteen years old, and already an incurable smart-ass, had propped his boots on the bench and asked "_Why do we need to know this shit?" _The instructor had given him a long look and said, simply, "_Because the different between seeing and not seeing can be the difference between living and dying."_

Seifer couldn't fault him, although he'd never become a SeeD and the habit of looking at things and seeing what was really there had become more reflex then chore. So he pinpointed the position of each machine and mapped every line of sight until he could have sketched a plan working from memory only. Lucky he hadn't wiped his mind with the Guardian Forces like the other SeeDs, he thought, but then Quistis's short-term recall seemed just fine.

Odine whimpered a couple of times and abruptly unrolled from his fetal position. He lurched across the desk like the first signs of intelligent life emerging from the seas and grabbed Seifer's arm. "You are aware ov course that this iz an entirely secret, confidential project?"

Seifer could have broken Odine's hold and both the scientist's wrists as well, but he couldn't be bothered. It would undoubtedly be more trouble than it was worth. He unpeeled each sallow finger from his arm and Odine's hand dropped limply to the desk. His fingers uncurled like a landed crab.

Seifer folded his arms across his chest. "You what?"

"You hav told nobody?"

"Got nobody to tell. You stopped me getting mail, remember?"

"Nobody in authority?"

"No." Seifer lied. He wondered why in Shiva's sweet name the scientist was so damn twitchy and shrugged. As far as he was concerned, the Estharians' high-level science seemed to draw weirdos like Chocobos to a whistle.

"Zat is good. Mention this to nobody."

His desperation automatically made Seifer wonder if he should mention this to anybody, but who would he tell? Laguna seemed to operate on his own alien timetable and seemed to have a damn good measure of the scientist already. Quistis, maybe, but what would he say? _Hey, Odine's been acting weird? _Weirder than usual?He didn't want to worry Edea any more than he had to, and Squall was-well, Squall was Squall.

Thinking of Leonhart made Seifer remember the monster-hunt festival. He spun the resurrected pen in his hands and said casually "Hey, one thing. I arranged to go fight in the big one with the SeeDs."

Odine's head flicked up. "You go to fight?"

Seifer shrugged, puzzled by the scientist's change of attitude. "Sure."

Odine beamed. "Zat is good, yes. Zat solves a lot of my problems."

The ex-knight struggled to follow Odine's train of thought. _Shit, I didn't train for this,_ he thought irritably. Education had settled on Seifer like snow on a Chocobo's wings and he had shaken most of it off since leaving Balamb. He'd trained for killing monsters, and that was it. "How?"

"Oh…ze stress of combat. It is so dangerous, so many things hav the potential to go wrong." Odine looked inappropriately pleased by the thought. His beady black eyes twinkled bright as raisins under his oversized eyebrows. "It may bring out hidden abilities, yes? You will come back after you hav fought, and I vill test you."

The scientist looked about as trustworthy as an Imp, but Seifer nodded anyway. Returning after the fight was an integral part of his plan. It seemed easiest to agree.

"Where iz it zat you are fighting?"

"Don't know yet."

"You vill tell me, yes? I hav to factor it into my calculations."

"Sure."

"I will note your co-operation, Things will go well from now on."

"Yeah, sure. When d' you want to see me again?"

"Not for a while. But before you leave, see me. I hav many maps, up to date, all-new data. They might help you."

Seifer tossed the pen back onto the table and rose. He kicked his chair backwards. It crashed against a worktop, shattering a flask of fuschia-pink liquid. "I can go?"

"Yes, of course. I hav many things to plan."

Seifer left, dodging a gaggle of cloth-wielding lab assistants. He walked slowly back to his room, hands dug deep in the pockets of his borrowed labcoat, sifting through Odine's motives. He trusted _Squall_ more than Odine, and he hadn't wholly trusted Leonhart since-well, ever.

Seifer meant to use the free time to work on his own plan (he was building a small but selective library of passwords in preparation, for example) but found it hard to settle. He had removed the tape on Hyperion several days before. It had left a gummy residue stuck to the blade that came off in long streaky smears when he picked at it. It needed cleaning, and Seifer had nothing but time on his hands.

He sat on the bed and dissembled the gunblade in preparation for the mission, cleaning dust and nonexistent dirt out of the chambers with a twisted piece of rag.

It was a slow, meticulous task that he had done hundreds of times before. The mechanisms slid apart with a soft familiar crack. Seifer's hands went through the motions, checking trigger, cylinder, bullet groove, hilt, and meanwhile his mind wandered.

_So why the hell_, he thought, _does Odine want me to fight?_

_Maybe he thinks I'll die, in which case, good luck to him. Or maybe he really does think there'll be some kind of breakthrough. You'd think he'd have tried testing me with some kind of training first, but what do I know? I'm just another fucking solder. They don't teach us this shit._

By the time he'd finished there was grease all over the sheets and Hyperion was as pristine as the day it had been issued. Seifer tucked the scrap of rag back into his trouser pocket and still couldn't think of any reason why Odine would be so overjoyed at the idea of him fighting monsters.

_Ah, fuck it. Screw the scientist sideways, yeah, and his labs and his testing too._

He sighted along the blade and flicked weapons oil from the tip onto the floor, where it burned the coating from the linoleum. The solidity of the blade, its weight, its balance, moved his wrist in the positions for guard, parry and block.

He slid from the bed and started drilling, tucking his elbow in to allow for the limited space. Hyperion sliced the air as he moved smoothly from a high guard to a low one, sliding one foot back. The blade was perfectly balanced, a patina on its cutting edge that caught the light and reflected it back. Seifer brought the sword up and flipped it, letting the weapon's weight carry it back. He circled an imaginary opponent, sighted and shifted to shooting position…

……..and fell over his kitbag, which he'd left in the middle of the floor. He didn't fall over, but it was enough to make him stagger backwards against the door. The handle hit him in his upper leg and he lowered the blade, almost slicing a gash in his thigh.

_Shit. _

He kicked the bag. It thudded against the wall and spilled open, haemorrhaging clothes. The weapons oil burst and spattered greasy drops all over his last clean T-shirt. Seifer swore again. He settled the heavy weapon back into its case, dragged the smeared sheet from the bed and stuffed his soiled clothes into it. The air was hot, and stank of grease. He wiped his greasy hands down his trousers and made for the roof slinging the bundle outside the door as he went for the building's cleaner to find.

_Room's too fucking tiny, that's the problem._

But even on the roof, the city seemed too small.

Maybe it was the sun, huge and gil-golden today. Or maybe it was the highway that ringed in the city, or the holographic wall that fenced off all of Esthar. Or maybe it was him.

There was a crumpled piece of white paper trapped in one of the aerials. It flapped in the breeze like a tattered flag.

Seifer reached up and ripped it off. He opened his hand and a breeze spun the fragments from his hand. When he could no longer see them against the sun he settled down on the roof, folded his arms behind his head for protection from the warm metal and closed his eyes. Colours streaked and gleamed in the darkness and he could still make out the position of the sun even through the skin of his eyelids. He had brought paper and pencil up, hoping to write a letter to Edea, but all his best efforts at mental composition ended in nothing.

Despite his resolutions, he found himself thinking of Quistis again. The shape of her long thighs under the thick cloth of her blue Estharian robe, the scuffed toes of her old brown boots, the quirk of her eyebrows when she'd asked him about the hat.

_She left thinking she hadn't helped, but she did_. He shifted his arms and summoned a mental image of the papers flying off into the sky, streaming from Quistis's fingers like anniversary confetti. What did he need with paper? He'd been going about this all wrong.

_As always_.

Maybe he'd been worrying about what the dreams meant instead of when they'd happened.

The dreams…

He called them dreams, but sometimes they were more like nightmares and sometimes something different. _Hallucinations_ sounded too trippy, and _visions_ was way too spiritual, sorta fluffy-bunnies and hearts-and-flowers shit, the kind of thing Rinoa might say. Quistis might have called them manifestations of his inner troubled self, but then even Trepe was full of shit sometimes.

Whatever you called them, they hadn't bothered Seifer much at first. After the wars, he'd had more immediate problems, and he had always been prone to weird sleep patterns. He'd just ignored them. Maybe they'd been dormant, or maybe there just hadn't been much time for more elaborate fantasies in the snatched moments of sleep between alcohol and vanishing into the Trabian pine forests. But whatever they were, they'd grown fangs since he had returned to Garden.

Seifer listed them on fingers still grimy from weapons cleaning. He shaded his eyes with his hand, fingers starfished as he counted.

The first time had been with Rinoa in the corridor, right when Angelo nearly ripped his throat out and he'd had problems distinguishing Rin from Edea/Ultimecia. The second had been shortly after, in the cafeteria, with Irvine. He'd been awake then, too. The third had been after he'd beat up on Zell, and that had been more of a conventional nightmare. A nasty conventional nightmare, sure, but maybe just a bad dream. The fourth and by far the most vivid had been with Edea.

_But you'd expect that, right? After all, she was the sorceress. _

There had been none since. Seifer wasn't sure whether his mental demons had been exorcised by meeting Edea, or whether his subconscious was saving itself up for something really nasty.

He rolled over onto the edge of the tank, swung his legs down and balanced on the edge. A chewed biro dangled from his lips in lieu of a cigarette. Somewhere there were normal people out there (not Estharians, of course, all the Estharians were fucking crazy as far as Seifer was concerned.) doing normal things, with normal heads and normal lives and normal dilemmas.

Seifer thought it would maybe be nice to be one of them. Half a day, perhaps, just until he started getting bored.

He began to compose a letter to Edea, and got further this time.

_Edea-_

_Looks like I got to write a bit sooner than I thought. Ellone's been taking the post out and it's working pretty well. Things here are crazy but I've got a plan for helping with Odine's science stuff. Can't tell you yet but if it doesn't work you'll know. I'd say don't tell anyone but guess you haven't got anyone to tell. Just Zell._

_Don't tell him, either._

_Still no dreams yet. _

_Say hey to Zell –it's good to hear he's doing some fucking work for a change. Haven't seen anyone else yet except Quistis. Balamb Garden hasn't arrived yet. Anyway, she's bossy as ever. I don't know where she gets off on that, she hasn't changed even from when we were kids. _

_Guess most of us haven't._

_You might not hear from me for a while. I'll be okay._

_Seifer_

_PS you know those dreams? I think it's to do with the sorceresses. Just like you always thought. I think they're echoes. And I think they'll go away._

_No. I haven't got any proof. Maybe later._

_No, I don't know why I've had them a couple of times without meeting a sorceress. I'm not a fucking scientist, after all._

_I guess- _

Seifer swore and scribbled the last paragraph out so hard that the pencil he was using (a stolen stub reading Odine Laboratories in silver metallic text down the side) pierced through the paper. He folded the whole letter into a makeshift paper aeroplane and sent it the same way as Odine's research notes.

What did he know? Look at him, Seifer Almasy, twenty-two years old. Failed SeeD, and glorified lab rat. Unqualified for everything except for burying large pieces of sharp metal in the soft bits of monsters. Proud owner of two pairs of trousers (both black), a pair of boots, a few shirts and a gun.

He jumped down from the tank and climbed down to the streets using the fire-escape, but whatever Seifer had been looking for in the lab or on the rooftop was not to be found in Esthar City's streets.

In fact, there was not much of any interest to be found on Esthar City's streets, because they were all but empty. Seifer had seen more life in deserts, and indeed, the streets seemed like canyons, high skyscrapers towering on either side of the walkways to reveal a thin sliver of blue sky. The lifters were half-empty. The tower-block offices might have been full, but mirrored glass made it impossible to see in.

It felt like there was a party, and Seifer was the only one not invited, no doubt because he'd committed some awful crime or other. It was a feeling he was used to.

He wandered into the shopping district and found a few more people. Unlike the weapons district he'd visited to buy ammunition, the precinct was aggressively high-tech. There was more neon, more plastic, more lights than any of the other districts.

Each of the tiny shops was different. Seifer passed shops hung with iridescent lanterns even though it was full daylight, shops coated in weird shiny plastic that looked like it had melted on, shops that looked like they transformed into robot warriors. Most of them looked like machines with the sales assistants as human pilots, although they all sold the same toys and overpriced crappy souvenirs. Automated kiosks covered every surface that was too small for a shop. Paradoxically, they looked much more like shops than the real shops did. Seifer checked some of the machines out because he remembered hearing from Irvine that some of them sold girls' panties. After examining ten or so he decided that the cowboy must have been lying or else he just hadn't found the right street. Most sold snacks and soft-drinks with stupid names in a variety of unnatural colours.

Seifer bought a cereal bar with a handful of change. One bite was enough to confirm that they really were as bad as they looked. He stripped the wrapper off and tossed it to the floor, where it stuck for two minutes before a cleaning robot whirred along and tidied it away. Seifer sat on the corner of a disused lifter and wondered, not for the first time, what exactly he was doing in Esthar. Unlike all the previous times he had asked himself this question, he now had an answer.

He was waiting.

Seifer watched as a pigeon wandered along and pecked half-heartedly at the sticky patch where the wrapper had fallen. It was joined by a second. Seifer dropped a corner of the cereal bar, and they fell on the toxic crap like starving Behemoths.

A third joined the party, and then a fourth. Seifer scattered handfuls of crumbs.

All of the pigeons were fat and fluffy. They would have been monster meat in any normal city, but they were the first sign of natural life that Seifer had seen in Esthar.

He didn't count the people as natural.

From Seifer's viewpoint he could see a herd of schoolchildren, stuffing their faces with the vile snack bars. They were shepherded by a few ineffectual older men, soft and fat, wearing robes that were larger than the tents SeeD provided for soldiers. Apart from the school group there was a woman with uncalloused hands and shoulder-length brown hair, holding a shopping basket, and a couple of students dressed in a blue college uniform. None of them had weapons, none of them were really looking at their surroundings, and none of them would last longer then the pigeons in a combat situation.

Which was, to say, about three seconds.

The pigeon flock at his feet had grown. Seifer scattered the last of the crumbs and watched them scuttle for the bounty. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that the first he knew of the soldiers was when the herd of schoolchildren squealed and departed, slip-ons loud on the flagstones.

The soldiers were quiet, and businesslike, and they walked like cockatrices in a herd of Chocobos. They were wearing blue uniforms.

Blue _Galbadian_ uniforms.

Seifer's hand went immediately to his weapons, or where his weapons would be if he had any. He swore. His next natural move was to assess the area for impromptu weaponry (nothing, except for the pigeons, which could possibly be used as small feathery projectiles in an emergency, which this most definitely was)

The last time he had seen Galbadian soldiers he had been wet and cold, and exhausted enough almost not to care about what they were going to do to him given the chance. This time he was warm, and well-fed, and itching for a fight.

The soldiers came closer. Seifer tensed, balancing one foot against the podium of the lifter. He calculated how much force would be required to send the lead soldier through the nearest shop window.

The lead soldier smiled faintly at him, and walked by. So did the second soldier. The _third_ soldier did a wild double-take followed by an evil stare, and then walked by. She caught up with the other two, whispered for a second, and then all three turned around and gave him an incredibly well-synchronised glare.

Seifer scowled back. He reached down for the nearest pigeon, but then the trio turned and moved deeper into the shopping precinct. Seifer watched them, pigeon in hand. One picked up an item on a stall, the others chatted up a shopping assistant. They moved from shop to shop like tourists, and they didn't look back. The pigeon squawked indignantly, twisted and pecked him on the finger. Seifer dropped it and the small flock flapped off, making the three other Galbadian soldiers walking up the street from the same direction duck.

The ex-knight frowned. He ducked into the nearest alley before the trio recovered and set a course roughly parallel to the main shopping street, moving fast. The alleys were quiet and clean, like a blue-lit cathedral. In any other city they would have been grimy, dark and full of smoke, or at least full of buckets of rotting fish heads. There were few other passers-by; he shouldered past a couple out for a walk and dodged a couple of kids playing cards. There was nobody else.

Seifer turned left at a junction and followed the sound of band music. It was a few seconds before he realised that he had come to a dead end. The alley narrowed, buildings on each side fanning out over the upper storeys so that the already narrow strip of blue sky between the towers skimmed down even more. There was a metal grille at the very end of the alley, waist-high like a gate and ornamented with an elaborate pattern of twined vines. Seifer walked over to it, leant on the grille and looked out.

Like the view from the lab's roof, the view was spectacular and strategically important, something which Seifer appreciated. The port spread out below him, following the faint, barely-perceptible arc of Esthar's Inland Sea. At first he thought that it was a festival, flags, confetti, a band playing some tinny marching tune. The bunting and paper almost obscured the squat view of the Garden moored at the docks. It squatted like a scarlet toad between all the sleek Estharian sailing vessels. It might have been a strange looking building, or a very ugly boat, a medium-sized boarding school, or all three in one.

A lot of people had come to see it arrive. The docks were filled with people. Fully half of them were in uniform, and Seifer made a mental note to avoid the docks as much as possible over the next few days. Galbadians had never been Seifer's greatest fans, unless you found a new definition for the word 'fan' that meant 'hated enemy.'

He shrugged, left the grille and made his way back to the shopping district, hunting through the machines as a way to pass the time. After half an hour of failing to find any kiosks selling either cigarettes or panties, he left and was accosted by an Estharian reporter just outside the district.

The journalist was hungry for news and fresh from interviewing some of the more photogenic Galbadian SeeDs. He made the mistake of recognising Seifer for a foreign mercenary (something about the scar and the military-short buzzcut Seifer had acquired just before leaving Balamb because his hair was pissing him off.) "Excuse me, Sir? Are you a SeeD?"

Seifer looked up, surprised. "I'm on sabbatical, okay? Now fuck off."

The reporter thumbed his lens to wide-angle. He squinted through the viewfinder and was surprised to find that its recording ability had been compromised by a hand placed firmly over the shutter. "Which Garden are you from?" he asked, switching to audio feed.

Silence. The journalist tried to remove Seifer's hand. He failed.

"Are you a mercenary, sir?"

"Hyne, is it that obvious?"

The journo took that for a _yes_. "As a SeeD, what do you think of the poor reputation in which the profession is held here in Esthar?"

"Has this got anything to do with the army kicking your asses in the war? Don't blame me. I was a kid then."

The journalist frowned. "I don't understand."

Seifer sighed. He twisted his wrist, wrenching several hundred gil's worth of plastic, ground glass and expensive Estharian electronics from the owner's hands, and dropped it on the floor. "Yes, I'm a mercenary, no, we're not all bastards, just me. It's just a job. Most of the time."

"So…am I to understand that-"

"Understand this. I _will_ punch your fucking face in if you ask me any more damn stupid questions. Okay?"

The reporter, a freckled-faced young man who had probably never seen anything more violent than a half-hearted Estharian punch-up in the taverns at closing time, looked taken aback. "I…think so."

"Good." Seifer snapped, and walked on, rolling a spare transport ticket between his fingers as he tried to pretend that it was a cigarette.

It felt like he had indeed died, and ended up in the wrong place. He wanted strong alcohol, drugs or meaningless hungry sex, none of which he was likely to find in Esthar. The thought of his plan had acted as a short-lived antidote, but now his wanderlust was back in full force. Realistically, he wanted out, whether in a map, a bottle or a pill.

_Four days _he told himself. _Four damn days. _

After a while he wandered back to the lab, drank the rest of Odine's stolen spirits and lay in a pleasant alcoholic haze on top of the roof, thinking of his plan and resolving not to take Quistis up on her offer of gym time or more advice.

He lasted two days.

* * *

Precisely two days later…. 

Quistis tapped at the keys on her computer with one hand, her face illuminated by the faint blue light of the screen. Her right hand held a phone receiver, and she listened to the tinny hold music with barely concealed distaste. There was a window behind her, open to the cold desert night and the blue-neon skyscrapers. A wind-chime dangled and glittered in the breeze.

"_Dee-da-dee-da-dum….Hello, this is Balamb Garden's answering service. If you are calling on business, please press one. If you have a monster problem, please press two. If you are a SeeD, please press three, if you are in a situation of life and death, please press four. If you would like to leave your name, the nature of your emergency and the number of remaining party members we will rate your call in order of priority and get back to you shortly." _

Quistis sighed. She hated the new answering system; an advanced version of a Galbadian prototype. The machine, being a machine, didn't pick up on her complete and utter loathing. It repeated the message.

"_Hello, this is Balamb Garden's answering service. If you are calling on business, please press-"_

Quistis sighed and pressed three. She typed her SeeD number in when prompted and returned to her work, typing awkwardly one-handed. She was completing requisition orders for the mission, tedious work at best, and the kind that occupied just enough of your brain to prevent you from doing anything else worthwhile. She'd been meaning to call Squall and tell him about Laguna's proposal for nearly three days, but this was the first time she'd found a moment.

"Hello? Balamb Garden here. Xu speaking."

Quistis abandoned her work with relief. "Xu? It's Quistis."

"Quistis! How's things?"

Quistis stifled a wince. "Could be better." she told her friend. "Is Squall in? I need to speak to him."

"I think so. I'll put you through." Xu sounded tired. Quistis sympathised. Garden generated enough administrative work for half a dozen full-time staff, but Xu had problems delegating.

There was a beep, and more tinny music, followed by Squall's voice. _"Quistis?"_

Quistis greeted him and ran down a brief description of her agreement with Laguna. Squall, on the other end of the phone, sounded pleased.

"Well done, Quistis. Any problems?"

Quistis gritted her teeth. "Did you know Seifer was in Esthar?"

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Suspiciously long, in fact. Quistis gripped the receiver so hard her fingers almost left prints in the plastic and thought _well, it would have been nice to have been told_. "Squall? You knew Seifer was here, didn't you?"

"It was his idea." Squall said, defensively.

"I doubt that very much." Quistis said without thinking. Of course Squall had known. Seifer had more or less admitted that Squall had sent him there. "You knew about Laguna's deal, too, didn't you, Squall?"

_Damn Seifer. Damn Squall. And damn Laguna for talking me into this._

Squall's voice was cool down the receiver (was it ever anything else) "I'm detecting insubordination, Quistis."

"Sir. In future I'll keep my insubordination below detection. Sir."

"Very good, Quistis."

"Permission to kill Laguna?"

"Tempting but permission denied. He's a valuable member of the community."

"And your dad."

"And my father. But don't let that stop you."

Quistis' irritation began to subside. "Squall, was that a joke?"

"Maybe. Look, I've been in touch with Seifer a few times. It sounds like you met him. How does it seem to you?"

Quistis remembered the meeting. Odine's notes; Seifer's helpless frustration. "Interesting." she told him. "I've scanned the research. Comparing the activity of Seifer and Edea's brains isn't a very scientific thing to do, as they've both been exposed to GFs as well as paramagic.……compared to regular SeeD brain activity, they could be fine. Really, not much of Odine's stuff proves anything. There isn't a large enough test pool-it's okay for writing up as a special case, or inventing hypotheses, but you can't come up with a scientific conclusion. The margin for error is too large, and the variables are infinite, especially in subjects like brains."

"A summary, Quistis?"

"I don't think it's really working, sir. I told Seifer that. Although he promised me he'll stay till after the mission's over, at least."

"He's considering leaving again?" Squall said. "That could be problematic."

"My thoughts exactly, sir." Quistis said. She gathered her robe more closely around her as a breeze blew in from the opened windows. It smelled faintly of dry desert air, scented with the thick herby smell unique to Esthar, as if you could boil the air into soup. "With respect, Odine will be screwing with his head, and Shiva knows he's supremely vulnerable to that kind of manipulation. The guy's a mess. To be honest, Seifer leaving is a best-case scenario. Worst case is him snapping and wreaking havoc on the labs. Odine just doesn't think in those terms. He'll never see it coming. "

There was a long pause. "How likely do you think that is?"

Quistis rocked one hand in the manner of somebody hazarding an informed guess. "Fifty-fifty, sir. But I'll give Seifer the benefit of the doubt and say one-third."

"Do you think you could persuade him to stay until the final battle? Without damaging anything significant?"

Quistis was about to answer _no, certainly not,_ when she was interrupted by a loud noise. It sounded like somebody kicking her door, or hammering hard with a clenched fist. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver and called out. "I didn't order room service."

_Thud._

"All right-" She trapped the receiver in the crook of her neck, cinched her robe in tightly at the waist and grabbed Save The Queen from the bedside table.

_Thud._

"I'm coming-" Quistis's hand hovered over a knife in the top drawer before she replaced the weapon and slid the drawer shut quietly.

_Thud._

"Just wait-"

_Thud._

"Look, I'll call you back." she said finally to Squall

"Trouble?"

"I don't think so."

"Signing off, then. We'll see you soon. ETA for Balamb Garden is in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, depending on weather conditions. There's a storm blowing in across the Central Ocean. See you then. "

"Signing off." Quistis replied. The line went dead, hissing empty static, and she replaced the receiver. She checked the position of the whip in the soft towelling belt of her dressing-gown, tightening the belt a little more to make sure the weapon didn't fall out. A flick of one finger saved the report she was working on. She left the computer, opened the door and thought instantly _I should have guessed._

After all, no Estharian would be as unforgivably rude as to hammer on a visitor's door in the middle of the night.

Seifer stood framed in the doorway, looking out of place in the neat, pastel-painted corridors. He looked too tall, too scarred, too military, his hair subtly too short. For the first time, Quistis wondered if he'd done it on purpose, just to piss the Estharians off.

"Seifer?" she asked.

Seifer leant one elbow against the doorjamb. He was carrying a large kitbag in his left hand. It was black; with the SeeD patches ripped off, and clinked as he dropped it on the floor at his feet.

"Hey, Quis."

Quistis lodged her foot in the jamb of the door. "Do you know what time it is?" she asked him, suddenly very aware that she was wearing her night clothes under her robe, and that her hair was wet. She raised her chin and rose subtly onto the balls of her feet.

Seifer looked at her, a pure SeeD look; the kind that saw everything and knew damn well that she wasn't wearing proper clothes and that her dressing gown had a thigh-high split in it. "Does it matter? You weren't asleep."

"I could have been." Quistis tried to will down the blush in her cheeks, but it ascended like a merciless red tide. Seifer watched her carefully in that way he had, and the blush darkened. The situation reminded her of that night in Balamb, after five hours of scraping kids up from the floor of the Training Centre, and Seifer dropping by drunk as hell, to tell her something very important that she'd never been able to work out.

"Are you drunk?" He didn't look drunk, though, and he didn't smell of alcohol. With Seifer, appearances were usually what you got. It was one of the best things about him.

"No. Trepe. I'm dead sober. But you know, I thought maybe-"

Quistis moved her hand to the door jamb, leaning her body so as to leave a little more to the imagination. At the same moment Seifer shifted weight as he reached down to pick up the bag, and their hands met.

"Maybe what?"

Seifer shook his head, as if he couldn't find any words to convey what he meant. "Ah, fuck it."

Quistis frowned, trying to work out what he meant, and Seifer took her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly.

Quistis was too bemused to do anything but go along with it at first. After the first shock had worn off, she realised what she was doing but she didn't want to stop, it felt so good. His body was solid and warm against hers, his chin fitted right on top of her head, just the right height. She ran her hands up into his hair, sleeking it forwards like fur. Seifer traced his fingers down the notches in her spine and she gasped.

Seifer heard and pulled back like he just realised what he was doing. He looked as stunned as she felt, His hair stuck up in ragged tufts from Quistis' clutching fingers.

"I didn't mean to do that." he said.

Quistis couldn't think of any sensible reply, so she just said "Well, that's all right then."

They stood there looking at each other. Seifer smiled at her like he intended to commit a felony.

"You better come in." Quistis said.

She'd meant to ask what Seifer really thought he was doing or at least what was in that damn kitbag, but then he kissed her again. All her logic vanished. She dragged him through the door (looking back afterwards she couldn't think of a better word for it) and they both fell on one another like starving chimeras. Seifer kicked the door shut behind him and they both collapsed back against it with a thud. His hands were in her hair, loosening it from the casual knot she wore until it fell free around her shoulders.

"Seifer-"

He pulled back and turned away from her, His face was set in some unfathomable expression in the dark. "You don't want me, then I'll go."

She put up one hand, whether to stop him or urge him on she never knew. Seifer caught it in mid air and slipped his fingers in between hers, slowly and deliberately.

Quistis ran her fingers up the sides of Seifer's face, remembering each plane of skin and bone with her hands. His stubble was a shade darker than his hair. His scalp prickled soft as suede under her hands.

Seifer inhaled sharply. "Yes?" he muttered.

Quistis kissed him, gently at first, then faster and deeper. Her thumbs curved neatly along each cheekbone. The very tip of her left thumb touched his scar. The skin was slick, faintly raised, and she wondered if he felt the calluses on her own hands as they winged out over his cheeks.

"I've missed this." Seifer said into her throat. "I've missed _you_."

Quistis slid her arms down to his shoulders. "If you were trying to be tactful, you could've said those two the other way around."

"'M not tactful."

"I kno-oh. Oh. Hyne, you're making it hard to have a conversation."

"Know that." Seifer tangled one hand in her hair and yanked her mouth down onto his, hard. He mumbled "I missed you." in a low voice and then reached inside her robe, underneath the belt.

"I think-"

"Don't. It makes things complicated." His eyes were dark and serious in the dusk. The blue neon gave his face an otherworldly tint. "Right now, all I'm thinking about is you and that bed. I mean, we don't even have to use the bed…."

Quistis smiled. "Maybe later."

He slid a hand down her flat stomach and lifted the elastic waistband of her knickers with his thumb, gauging her response by sound and movement and adjusting accordingly. "Just don't put your foot through the wall again, right? This place looks expensive."

"I won't." Quistis assured him tartly. She pulled at the hem of his T-shirt and might have used more force than necessary, because one finger went right through the cotton right above the hem. "Just take your shirt off, okay?"

"Now?"

"Now." She pulled Save The Queen out of the waistband of her robe, dropped it on the floor and kicked it with her bare heel under the bed.

Seifer's shirt was already over his head. "Hey, anything you say." he murmured, yanked the T-shirt off and dropped it on the floor. "Happy?"

Quistis nodded. She had meant to take her time and slow things down a bit, but Seifer had remembered exactly where her dressing gown fastened.

_Damn him. _

He shoved her back against the wall and held her there, her hands knotted in the crumpled cotton of his T shirt, mouth open against his neck as she shuddered and gasped and directed him with a muttered-there, no, _there_-

"Here?"

"-that's right-"

"Tell me." he muttered.

Quistis had hair in her mouth, panting. Her spectacles hung crooked on her nose. "Here?"

"Yes." she said, and then they said nothing for a while.

They made it to the bed, eventually.

* * *

Seifer woke about four am, not long after they'd finally called it a night. He lay on his half of the bed and stared at the ceiling. 

It had been an interesting evening.

Seifer would be the first to admit that he was no stranger to interesting evenings, but this particular one had been highly interesting by any standards. Hyne, the woman was insatiable once she got going. Maybe it was the tightly wound bun and wire-framed spectacles; something had to give sometime. He didn't think he could move. With Quistis curled up beside him, he really didn't want to.

So he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, listening to Quistis's quiet breathing. He knew that if he could hold onto any moment from the last twenty-two years of his life, then it would have been the instant when she pulled him in through the doors and started kissing him back.

_Nngh, Oh man, it's been a long time._

_(Yeah, like about two weeks)_

_Whatever. Make the most if it, 'cause you know it won't last_

_So fucking what_, he told the voice inside his head, rolled over and slept again.

When he woke up, Quistis was gone.

Seifer angled his head. The sheet was crumpled, and there was a hollow left by her body in the mattress, but Quistis herself was nowhere to be seen. Her clothes had disappeared from the floor and the bathroom door was propped open. The sound of running water and plumes of girly-smelling steam issued from behind the door. Seifer decided to wait.

He stretched, enjoying being the last one in bed for a change. Seifer was normally the first one up. If he was completely honest, he was usually the first one grabbing his clothes and heading for the door, as well (speed of exit depending on just how many beers he'd had the night before). The bed was huge and comfortable, large enough for about three extra people. It didn't surprise Seifer. He had a theory that Esthar was heavily into secret swinging parties held behind closed doors, like the things you were afraid that your parents and /or guardians got up to at night when you were fourteen.

He blinked, looked around at Quistis's lodgings, and realised that the whole ten-times-as-large-as-normal theme extended to the rest of the room as well.

_Holy shit_.

The contrast with his own room couldn't have been more marked. The room was huge, about the size of a SeeD classroom. He caught a glance of other rooms through half-open doors, one of them presumably the gym Quistis had mentioned. There were enough tropical plants to make it look like half the Training Centre had been transplanted to Esthar, and pictures on the walls. An expensive computer was tucked in an alcove. The floor was covered in dark shiny wood. It all made Seifer's room look like, well, a lab.

He looked at the enormous wardrobe and estimated that Quistis's luggage took up about a sixth of the available space. He hadn't noticed her surroundings or the state of her clothes much the previous evening; he'd been more concerned with the ones she wasn't wearing.

The shower door opened and Quistis emerged, her hair twisted up in a towel that matched her bathrobe. She carried a crumpled bundle of clothes in her arms.

"They gave you _this_?"Seifer said.

Quistis looked around as if she'd never seen the room before. "Yes. Nice, isn't it?"

She sat on the bed and began to sort her clothes methodically into drawers in her bedside table. "I swore I'd never do this again." she said, almost to herself.

Seifer grinned. "Looks like you changed your mind."

Quistis gave him a disapproving look. It was pretty hard to stand on your dignity wearing only towels, but she managed it. Quistis would have managed to look haughty completely naked. "What if I slept with you just because I was angry at Odine?"

Seifer frowned, trying to work this one out. "Why would you be angry with him? Anyway, if you did, then I owe him one." He sat up and moved closer to Quistis.

She didn't lean back, but she didn't move away either, and with Quistis that counted for a lot. Her hair smelled of lavender shampoo. Her expression looked like she would have said _fuck you_ if it hadn't lined Seifer up for a comment along the lines of _I just did. _Anyway, it wasn't Quistis's style.

Seifer grinned. "You must've been really mad at him."

Quistis folded her Estharian robes. She gave Seifer a glare out of the corner of her eye that said _don't push it_. Seifer, being Seifer, did.

"Hey, look me in the eye and tell me you didn't enjoy it just as much as I did. It works. Fucked if I know why, but it works."

Quistis turned and looked at him in that way she had. The glint in her eyes reminded Seifer of Odine's autopsy, everything laid bare and neatly dissected. He had the feeling she could see right through him, but then she always had.

She finished folding the robe and stowed it neatly into a drawer. "I have to ask you something."

Seifer shrugged. "Shoot."

"Why did you just come up to my room last night and kiss me?"

He couldn't think of any reason to lie. "I wanted to use the gym."

"So what's in the bag?"

"Hyperion." Seifer said. He had never been able to work out why the Estharians had a phobia about people walking around with weapons, although experience had taught him that it was easier if they didn't notice the weapons in the first place. That way it was still illegal, but nobody worried so much. "What did you think it was? I wanted to train."

"That's an unusual way of asking."

Seifer shrugged. "I sure got a workout. I mean, shit, I think I lost five kilos." From the look on Quistis's face, he guessed that the subject wasn't exactly her idea of appropriate post-coital conversation. "Look, do you want romancing? I can do that. I mean, your skin, it looks..."

Quistis closed the drawer. "Looks what?"

It wasn't the first time that Seifer had thought that the god who had put a brain like a silicone chip in the body of an underwear model had a really strange sense of humour. _Shit, I 'm really bad at this_. "Good, okay? Pretty." What he really wanted to describe was the way the morning light caught the stray hairs around her head and made them glow like a halo but there was no way he was every going to manage to put that into words. "I'm better at, whaddaya call it, nonverbal communication."

"Really?"

"Really. It makes me want to kiss you here…" Seifer bent forwards and kissed her neck, right where the towelling collar of her bathrobe ended and her skin began. She didn't seem to mind much, so he moved up behind her. He put one hand on each of her shoulders and kissed his way along the back of her neck, pushing the collar of the robe out of the way "And here, and 'ere." he said with his voice muffled.

"Hang, on, I am not just going to let you- I mean, I have work to do."

Seifer pushed her hair out of the way gently. "And here.."

"I have a meeting in four hours. I have to prepare-"

"Hell, you work too hard anyway."

"Maybe just once."

"Good. See, I knew you'd like it. Hell, your earlobes fucking rock." He bit gently at the lobes of her ears and kissed the back of her neck again. "You should cut off all your hair. Better access……"

"No way." She stroked his hair.

Seifer pushed up into it like a cat. "Hey, you're really soft for an ice -queen, and kind of warm…."

She smiled and ran her hand along his spine, tracing each ridge of bone and muscle. It tickled. Seifer grinned.

"Hey, I like you, Quis. I like you a lot."

"That's a compliment?"

"You bet. Mmmm, do that again."

"That?"

"No, that. Uhn."

"You like it?" There was a teasing tone in her voice that Seifer hadn't heard before. It was sultry as fuck, the kind of voice that would make the Trepies die of heart failure.

"Hell yes, now come over here a minute. I bet you like this…" he told her, and proceeded to be very, very nice. It was an apology of sorts, more practical than a fruit basket or flowers, and certainly more fun.

Quistis didn't seem to mind, either way.

* * *

What can I say, I enjoy writing smut. More next chapter (w00t) dastardly deeds for a certain scientist, and Laguna tells our (anti?)hero something he would never have guessed. 

Esthar City is not a port in the game, but it's on a large inland sea, so I extrapolated.

Seifer must have had the same tutor as Roland Deschain from Steven King's The Dark Tower series: his old teacher's quote is taken pretty much verbatim from 'The Drawing Of The Three.' The quote about 'Wilfred Owen Experiencing The Horror Of The Trenches' is adapted from a book I read and then forgot. No, there is no Wilfred Owen in the SeeD world, but then they're probably not speaking English either, so think of it as a translation.

Reviews:

Asga: many thanks.

Ash; hope you like this one too!

Dragon Princess Isis: thanks. You forgot the blatant plagiarism though (it's homage! Really, it is!)

Ghost 140: thanks! I wish Altol would write something else too!(hint, hint)

Jack Hanke; thanks again: the family theory on Squall's belts is that they hold up his suspenders.

Kapoo; why, thankyou. You deserve a special mention for sitting through so much bad writing in one go.

Kjata:. The ancient gunblade isn't a plot point, the whole museum thing is taken from several trips to various weapons exhibits in museums in the UK and US. They're kind of pretty. There was a primitive gunblade in one of them, but it was very small.

Quisty Almasy; I'm glad that you're still enjoying it.

ThistleDemon: Re Sympathy For The Devil, Seifer is hardly a man of wealth and taste, but nice song. All the lyrics to 'I don't sleep, I dream' by REM fit pretty well.

Sulou; oh, the monster hunting in the next few chapters is good-really enjoyed writing it. Lots of action-and more sex!

Superviolist: I graduate next week :P Right now I'm working at the box factory.

And just for fun, a quote I found on the inestimable Making Light, a writer's fight song. It's going to take up way too much space but so what, 'cause it made me laugh.

"We have huge throbbing word counts

And shiny sexy brains

We know a thousand different words

For every kind of rain

The deadline's here, we have no fear

We've pulled this off before (just barely)

And if the plot is lagging

We'll toss in a dinosaur (or two!)

So beat your helpless characters

With bricks and baseball bats

We've answered all our email

And shaved and waxed the cats

Procrastination is the foe

Write in a kindly whore

And add a bit of sodomy

And another dinosaur!

(Make them fight and make them screw

Make them do what bad folks do

Make them mean and let them fuck

Give them really crappy luck)

Our writer's clubs have spikes in

We back up all our work

We love our semicolons

Our heroes are all jerks

So have another coffee

Or have another drink (or three!)

And surf the web and have a smoke.

And try like hell to think

And maybe write in a cavalier

Tall and blonde and slightly (ambivalent about the legacy of colonialism)

Anyway, go knock yourselves out, guys.

-kate

(who is neither tall, blonde, or ambivalent about the legacy of anything)


	17. Chapter Sixteen: Sort Of A Protest Song

Recovering The Satellites

And I'm tired of walking around with my hand on my gun

Tired of watching them wind you up to see if you'll run

Tonight I'm going to go out and have me some fun

Cause I'm tired of walking around here with my hand on my gun.

Matthew Good Band-Sort Of A Protest Song

OOOO

Chapter Sixteen: Sort Of A Protest Song.

It was very warm.

Quistis drowsed pleasantly underneath the thin cotton sheets. The hotel room was peaceful around her, silent save for Seifer's quiet breathing and the keening calls of seabirds from the open window. They were high enough that traffic noise was not an issue, but if Quistis listened hard enough she could hear a lazy buzz, equal parts voices, electricity and lifter hum. The noise of the city.

She slit one eye open. Bright morning light showed around the curtain margins, turning the room into a terracotta cave.

She woke fully with a start, flicked hair from her face, and pushed away the sheets.

_Morning._

_Damn._

The clock winked cheerfully at her, second hand marching inexorably on as she watched.

_Ten-thirty._

_Double damn._

"I have to get ready!"

Seifer yawned, rolled over and threw one arm around her waist, all without opening his eyes. "You need to relax." His voice was deep and sleep-thickened, and Quistis knew she'd woken him.

"It's past ten." Quistis told him. "I'm supposed to report for duty in forty minutes." She slid out from under his arm and dug her feet into the rug, cool on her bare toes.

"So? Skip it."

Quistis shook her head. She fisted her hands in the sheets, set her feet in the rug and pulled. Luckily for her, Seifer was still sleepy enough to lose the battle for the covers.

"Hey!"

She ignored him, dumped the sheets on the floor and reached for her bathrobe. "How about you take a shower? I need to get ready."

"Can't I watch?"

"No."

Seifer leant his head back against the wall and glared at the alarm clock out of the corner of his eye. "Any chance of something to eat before I get kicked out?"

Quistis opened the wardrobe. "I'll order breakfast."

"You can do that?"

"Of course."

"How the other half live." Seifer said sardonically. He showed no signs of moving. His own clothes were strewn over the floor at Quistis's feet. She scooped up the nearest items and flung them at him by way of incentive. Seifer caught the T-shirt, the jeans and one sock. He missed the boot. It ricocheted off the wall, narrowly missing the carafe of water on Quistis's bedside table. She raised one eyebrow, said nothing.

"Oh, fuck off." Seifer said, without anger. He slid from the bed, picked up the rest of his clothes and stalked into the shower. Seconds later she heard the water switch on and the rattle of the shower curtain.

"Shit. The water's hot."

Quistis sat on the edge of the bed and buttoned her shirt. "This is the city. They have water pressure here."

There was a subtle change in shower noise. "Free stuff, too."

"Yes." Quistis said. The truth was that Laguna had been more than usually generous on the matter of freebies. Quistis would never have dreamed of stealing things from hotel bedrooms, but even she had considered taking a few of the towels. They were the size of bedsheets and as fluffy as Chocobo feathers.

"I'm taking some."

Quistis frowned. "Nothing large." she said suspiciously. She half–expected Seifer to leave dragging the sink, towels, soap, and possibly the wall tiles (complete with grout), but she was wrong. He was ready by the time room service served breakfast, raking wet hair from his eyes. He took nothing but a small bottle, which he stowed away in his bag. Quistis didn't ask, although she did try to remember whether any shampoo brands could be used to make explosives.

The breakfast consisted of tiny jam-filled pastries served with weak milky coffee, which suited neither of them. Seifer poked each roll before he ate it, as if he expected it to uncurl and walk away. "Weird. Where'd they get all this food from? 'Cause, you know, _desert_…?"

"There are hydroponic gardens under the city." Quistis told him. She brushed buttery crumbs from her fingers with a napkin. "They've never had a food shortage here. Estharian tech's too much in demand."

"Meaning they're rich fuckers."

"Meaning they don't have any problem with buying anything they want."

"Including mercenaries." Seifer said. He broke open three paper packets of sugar and emptied them into his cup, one after another. "But I don't get it. Laguna told me about opening up the deserts. Don't have a problem with it. Great plan. But if it works, we'll be out of date. What's the word? Ops-something."

"Obsolete." Quistis said. "But that can't happen."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because we -Squall, Selphie, Zell, everyone, you know, we went forwards in time. In the wars. We know SeeDs survive; we saw them fighting the sorceress in the future. Don't worry."

"I'm not." Seifer said. "Just making sure I'll have things to kill in the future, that's all."

Quistis smiled. Her own gaze flickered to Save The Queen, coiled neatly on top of her SeeD rucksack. "There'll be plenty to kill in two days' time."

"Fuck yeah. Looking forwards to it."

"Me, too."

"You heard where we're going yet?"

Quistis shrugged and flicked a crumb from her blouse. "The Garden should be here tonight. You'll have a chance to talk to Squall then."

"Can't wait." Seifer said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Quistis hid a smile. If it hadn't been for the fact that Seifer and Squall were sworn enemies, they might have got on quite well.

She piled cutlery and cups up onto the plates, brushing crumbs from the carpets. "I need to go, Seifer."

"Right." Seifer wiped his mouth. "I've got to go see Odine anyway. He said he might have some maps and stuff. I bet he knows about the desert." His grin broadened. "I guess I'll see you tonight."

Quistis smiled. Seifer could be so…confident sometimes. "I guess so." she deadpanned back.

"You bet." He paused and tilted his head on one side, fishing. "You've really got no idea where we're fighting?"

"I heard a rumour we'll be assigned to some old caves. But don't quote me on that. Strictly confidential."

Seifer's grin faded. "Caves." He said the word as enthusiastically as an Estharian might have said _soldiers_. "Great."

"You don't like caves?"

"Who does? They're too dark, they're too small, and things jump out on you. And don't forget that the things down there usually see in the dark, 'cause they're fucking _nocturnal_." He paused, looking slightly embarrassed. Seifer never liked to be afraid of anything. "Anyway. You're going to be late. You should get ready."

"I _am _ready." Quistis looked pointedly at the clock

Seifer leant forwards and kissed her. He got up as if nothing had happened and picked his black kitbag from the floor. "See you later, then."

"Later, Seifer-"

The door closed.

Quistis rolled her eyes.

She moved to her computer and booted the machine up, fingers moving deftly over the keys. Seifer had interrupted her mid-research the previous evening, and she wanted to look over her notes. She brought up her documents folder and pulled up a couple of files. They were saved, naturally, under false names, just in case anybody might be hunting around on the Palace mainframe.

_There'll be time, I've got fifteen minutes; the meeting's in the same building. I won't be late._

Odine's research notes had intrigued Quistis. She'd been researching the topic, on the quiet, naturally. She recalled some of the medical jargon from Dr Kadowaki's notes; hippocampi and amygdala, benzodiazepines, specific-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors and temporal zones. It didn't help much. Odine's research was so far advanced from the usual medicalese that she was barely sure exactly what he was doing, and Quistis was smart, but she was no scientist.

She shut down the folders and opened another; this one discussing possible treatments. Kadowaki would probably have suggested standard SeeD post-traumatic stress therapy to Seifer if he'd gone to see her. Quistis betted that he hadn't.

Therapy, it had been established, was not an option. Drugs were a possibility; all the SeeDs did battle chemicals like they were going out of fashion, although Quistis doubted that Seifer would willingly take anything that essentially turned him into a zombie. Or maybe he would. You never quite knew with Seifer.

She saved her search and shut the computer down, linking her fingers to stretch above her head.

OOO

Seifer walked back to the lab through bleached-white streets, his kitbag balanced on his shoulder. He skirted each shadow, sticking to the sun, where the streets were quieter. It was hot and humid in the expectant way that air had just before a storm, and there was a thin line of grey cloud on the southern horizon.

He thought about Quistis's pale body, in that warm red-walled room. The white naked half-moons behind each of her ears; the sharpness of tendons and the double line of muscle down each forearm. SeeD girls tended to leanness, but Quistis was curvy enough, in all the right places. Curvy enough for him, anyway.

The carton of talc he'd swiped from Quistis's bathroom rattled around in his bag. Quistis wouldn't approve of his plan, and she certainly wouldn't approve of contributing material towards it, but when had that ever stopped him from doing anything?

He walked fast and arrived early at the lab, a whole fifteen minutes before his appointment. The room was locked and empty. Seifer had expected that. Wednesdays were always quiet. Lecturing, or something.

He pulled Quistis's talc from his pocket and looked surreptitiously around. The corridors were empty. There were no visible bugs.

_Perfect. _

Seifer unscrewed the talc and dusted a thin layer of the powder onto the lab's locked keypad. Fingerprints were clearly visible on four of the ten keys. Seifer copied the corresponding numbers carefully down on the inside of his wrist. He wiped the talc off with the hem of his T-shirt waited outside for a while until Odine turned up. When he did Seifer loitered just around the corner and watched the movement of the little scientist's fingers as he stabbed at the keypad. After the doors had hissed open and Odine had entered Seifer nodded and recopied the numbers in a slightly different order. He adjusted his watch-strap to cover the code and sauntered in.

Odine looked up. "Early, aren't we?"

Seifer shrugged. "Guess I must just be keen." He made a habit of being late for every session. It was a kind of non-violent protest.

"There iz a first time for everything." Odine commented dourly. "But we may as well make ze most of ze time zat we have. Please sit down."

Seifer looked around. The lab looked neater than usual, unusually so. The desks were clean and somebody had dragged in a couple more chairs. The room usually looked like a hybrid of a space station, a mad alchemist's laboratory and a library. Today it just looked a mess.

He sat down.

Odine seated himself across the table. He placed a pad and a pen of paper neatly in front of him. Seifer watched with suspicion. Odine hadn't tried taking notes since their third meeting, when Seifer had stolen his notebook and fed it into the air-conditioner.

The scientist tugged fussily at the cuffs of his lab coat. "I would like to start off vith a simple question, if I may."

Seifer shrugged. There was a cage of experimental rats to the right of the desk. Their beady mad eyes reminded him of Odine. There was a large sign clipped to a board at the front of the cage. It read PLEASE STARVE.

Odine wrote a heading and underlined it with finicky precision. "Why do you think the sorceress chose you?" he asked, without looking up.

"I don't know." Seifer told him. The answer was his default reply to any of Odine's questions, along with "No." and "What?" It also happened to be true. He really had no idea. Maybe it had something to do with being backed into a corner and desperate enough to accept Edea/Ultimecia's proposal, maybe it was to do with his undoubted skill with a gunblade. Maybe it had been because he had been the only one in that group who had recognised Matron across five years and ten layers of makeup. Or maybe she just liked blondes.

"You really hav no idea? You vill not even discuss with me?"

"There's nothing to discuss. I don't know." Seifer reached for a biro. He flicked it around his fingers and inhaled around the ink chamber. Smoking plastic just didn't cut it.

"What do you remember about it?" Odine pressed.

Seifer blank-eyed him. "Nothing." The biro slipped in his fingers, slick with sweat. His brain threw up random impressions; too vague even to be coherent memories. Desperation, the stink of Deling's fear-sweat, the dazzling light of the broadcast cameras, amber eyes dark with kohl.

"What did it feel like?"

Seifer dropped the pen. It skittered across the desk and rolled onto the floor, and the ex-knight took another one from the pot on the desk without even looking up. "How many fucking times do I have to tell you that I don't remember?" He slid back in his seat, pretending boredom. A tiny red light blinked on the arm of Odine's chair. _Is he recording this? _

"How much input did you actually have in ze process?"

"You'll have to tone it down. I don't understand all those long words."

Odine gave him a look that said _I would very much like to have your head in a jar and you know I would too but current regulations forbid it._ What he said was "What do you think would have happened if you had refused ze bond?"

"That's not what happened." Seifer pointed out. "I said yes." He clicked the pen on and doodled a fire cross on the back of his hand. In the privacy of his head he knew that it would have been somebody else. Squall? Zell? Quistis? Fuck _that_.

Odine looked at the drawing and then back up at Seifer. "Did you ever try anything to reduce the hold she had on you? Any magic or devices?"

The ex-knight paused in writing LOVE and HATE on his knuckles. "Why in hell'd I have wanted to?"

"Correct me if I am wrong." Odine said politely. "I doubt zat ze experience was pleasant."

Seifer scowled at his artwork. The T was upside down and one of the E's was back to front. "It wasn't anything. It just was." he told Odine. "You couldn't pick and choose. If it'd been like that then I wouldn't've been her knight. I didn't get to make decisions. I just knew."

Odine smiled triumphantly at Seifer. His beard jutted satanically above his ruff. "So you _do_ remember something?"

"It's just a feeling."

"So do you hav any more feelings? What do you feel about ze sorceress now?"

Seifer shrugged. "Ultimecia died. Edea's fine. I don't really think about it."

"Yet you were willing to take her place here. That implies some level of residual responsibility, yes?"

"She fucking brought me up. 'Course I want to look after her." Seifer said irritably. "You feel no link? Nothing of a psychic nature?"

Seifer scratched his head with the end of the pen. "Nah. I don't believe in that shit."

Odine scowled. The window behind him highlighted flecks of dandruff on his dark hair and made the ink-stains on his wide sleeves obvious. "Have you any opinion of her current mental status?"

"She's fine." Seifer said automatically.

"The lady Edea is not fine by the standards of any culture. Correct me if I am wrong, but women in Balamb do not normally inhabit lonely southern islands." He sketched a poor reproduction of Seifer's biro'd fire cross in his notebook while he talked.

Seifer could have corrected the drawing, for him, but he didn't. "She's getting over it." he told the scientist. _And, by the way, the bottom arm's the pointy bit._ _And it's longer_.

"Getting over what?"

"You're supposed to know that shit." Seifer told him. "Not me. I'm just a soldier. I don't have an opinion." SeeDs weren't just soldiers, weren't _just_ anything, but he doubted Odine would know the difference. He avoided Odine's eyes, scanning the lab while the scientist scribbled. No doubt about it, the place _was_ emptier. Odine's books were stacked in neat piles on the shelves, bookmarks removed. The only scans visible were three CAT cross-sections lined up on a viewing screen, above the rat-cage. Seifer recognised one as his own. The second was a stock photo with a date two years old that he recognised as one of Odine's standard archive scans, used for comparison. The third scan was almost as old as Seifer, with tattered edging and faded sepia ink. The name on the top was familiar. Seifer pointed the pen at the viewer. "What's that?"

"It iz none of your business." Odine said indignantly. "Private study."

"Hey, it's mine. I think I've got a right-"

"You hav not." Odine said.

Seifer interpreted his belligerence as intellectual protectiveness. He shrugged and thought of his plan, and looked at Odine with a nasty smile that the scientist found most unsettling. "I've gotta go, anyway. Pack my stuff. I'm moving into the Pres Res for a few days."

"I assume that you mean ze Presidential Residence."

Seifer shrugged. "Yeah, that."

Odine looked less than pleased with the news. "You are still going to fight? With Balamb?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Good. Where will you be assigned?"

Seifer shrugged. "Caves, I heard. You got any cave surveys? They'd be useful."

Odine scribbled a note on his pad. He closed the notebook immediately. His notes only covered half a page. Seifer doubted they'd be useful. He'd stolen a few of Odine's research notes from the files when he was hunting for Edea's case log. Most of them said things like '_subject uncooperative, possibly psychotic'_. "I am afraid not."

"Figures." Seifer told him, dourly. He wasn't keen on the idea of caves. The desert was snake-infested and monster-haunted, hot during the day and freezing at night and altogether an unhealthy place to be, but it was Seifer's kind of place. There was no _room_ in caves. You needed space to swing a gunblade, and Seifer was over six feet tall. He didn't relish a couple of days of bending double and knocking his head on the roof. They'd probably team him up with midgets. After two days of Zell and Selphie he'd be batshit crazy.

"Of course, caves are dangerous places." Odine said thoughtfully. "I do hope zat you are adequately prepared."

_Yeah, well, that sounds like a threat. _Seifer thought, _And you know, I was just leaving. Feel free to try, old man._

"Don't think we'll have a problem." he told Odine, replacing the borrowed pen into the pot on Odine's desk. As he did so he knocked the notepad with his wrist. The pad slid across the table and came to rest against the metal bars of the rat cage. Seifer's hand flashed out, grabbing for the pad. The movement blocked Odine's hand for a second, giving Seifer enough time to kick the desk with carefully calculated force. The notebook tipped into the cage, where it was devoured with all the speed two-day-starved rodents could muster.

Odine regarded the rats glumly. "Paper iz not good for them."

Seifer got up. "Shit happens."

Odine looked at him with an expression of mixed regret and slight guilt. "Farewell." he said briefly, and turned his attention back to the rats, watching them as if mentally forcing the animals to regurgitate the notes and then piece the bits together.

Seifer shrugged, picked up his bag from the floor and walked out. As he left the lab's automatic lights flickered on as stormclouds finally obscured the sun. The pale sodium glow lit Seifer's path back to his room, wan against the storm clouds piling up outside. It gave the lab an open-all-hours feel, like the fluorescent tubes in an all-night bar.

He returned to his room and packed his bag quickly, piling clothes on top of the gunblade and throwing a half-empty carton of ammunition on top. When the kitbag was bulging at the seams he walked into the bathroom, levered the lid from the toilet cistern and retrieved a plastic-wrapped package.

The mousetrap had been cobbled together from the trashed remnants of a SAM-80 cyborg dino brain, a cleaning bot from Balamb, and Odine's stapler. The stapler had been far too intelligent in the first place than a piece of stationery equipment had any right to be. The ex-knight had added a few modifications. He had also found that whatever else it did, it hunted Odine's spybots just fine.

It took the machine only a few minutes to hunt down and disable the few surveillance robots that had made it in. Like a loyal dog, it brought each one carefully back and dropped them on the worn linoleum at Seifer's feet. The 'bots were missing legs or wings or antennae. Their corpses spat blue sparks that jumped a few centimetres from the rug like tiny roman candles before dying.

_All I need is for it to say "Yes, master" and it'd be perfect_, Seifer thought. _Maybe I could program it in._

He scooped up the tiny electrical fragments and threw them down the garbage chute. When the room was clear he reached under his pillow, untaped a knife from the wall just behind the headboard and used the tip of the blade to unscrew the ventilation grille from the ceiling above his bed. The screws rose cleanly from the metal coving. He removed each one, stuffed them in his pocket and lifted his hand to catch the grille as it dropped.

Seifer's plan hinged on the lab being camera-free. He reckoned four or five days was more than enough time for the machine to make its way to the lab and methodically exterminate all the native camera-bugs. He hoped that the storm's static wouldn't interfere with the machine.

_Fuck that. Odine probably built circuit-breakers into the thing. Hope he did._

The machine fitted neatly into the open vent. It squatted quietly in the shaft, the red and green LEDs that studded its shell blinking rhythmically. Seifer balanced on the bed frame and watched the machine as it took an experimental step in the direction of Odine's laboratory. "_Go to the lab_." he hissed, like it would understand, thinking that he sounded stupid even as he said it.

Long filaments emerged from the machine where antennae would have been placed on an insect. It whined and speeded up, ungainly legs jutting out just like a lizard's. Like a lizard it moved fast and erratically, pausing every so often. It was soon out of Seifer's reach, LEDs glowing like holiday lights as it disappeared down the shaft. There was a faint echoing _tap-tap-tap_ as mechanical tendons and sinews contracted, and then not even that.

He replaced the ventilation grille and tried to forget about it.

OOO

The stormclouds had well and truly gathered by the time Seifer met Quistis back at the Presidential palace. The heat was unbearable, like being stuffed inside a wet sack, so they decamped to the wide balcony off Quistis's main room. There, they dozed and talked, it being far too hot to fuck or fight.

Quistis sat on a low pinewood bench, the scent of spruce thick in the air. She kicked her heels against the paving-slabs carefully, so as not to damage her leather boots. Strictly speaking, the boots were far too warm for the weather, but she liked them. SeeDs were not encouraged to accumulate possessions, and they had a high-risk lifestyle. Anything that lasted for more than a couple of months or a few missions was usually a keeper.

It was one of the things that she liked about Seifer, that he instinctively understood the nomad mindset. Most SeeDs did. She could think of maybe three things she would grab from her room in an emergency, and she wouldn't feel bad about leaving the rest.

Seifer sprawled flat out on the floor tiles, feet touching the balcony's wrought-iron grille. He was uncharacteristically quiet, but he wasn't asleep.

Quistis stared out at the city, mapping patterns between street-blocks. When that got boring she rested her chin on her hands and watched Seifer, and when even that entertainment palled, she bent down and brushed his arm lightly with one finger.

"Seifer?"

"Mn?"

"If you had to take three things out of a burning building, what would you take?"

Seifer scratched at his chin. He hadn't shaved and looked like a summer pirate, stubble bleached as pale as the dry grass that rattled in the desert. "Huh. This is one of those fucking girly questions, isn't it?"

"It's not a girly question. I just want to know."

"You see my bag? I'd take that." He stretched like a Torama and yawned like a snake, so widely she thought his jaw would unhinge. "Question answered."

"What about if you didn't have a bag packed?"

"Are you crazy? I'd probably be running round with a sword like all the other fucking idiots. And then I'd find the guy who did it, hunt him down, and make him wish he hadn't. That enough for you?"

"It's an answer."

"Damn right."

There was a brief silence.

"Seifer?"

"Yeah?"

"How did it go with Odine?"

Seifer didn't bother to open his eyes. "That bastard always gets to me. He's such a fucking freak."

"So it's not going well." _What a surprise._

"I'm ignoring him. It's working okay. He's getting pissed off." He grinned, lopsidedly, and looked up at her. "One weird thing, though. I'd swear that Odine was looking at scans of his own head earlier today. Make any sense to you?"

Quistis shook her head.

"Me neither. Maybe that's why he's so fucking crazy. Too much radiation." He sighed. "I left today. Said I'd go back, but I guess that's it. How many weeks now? Hasn't helped at all."

"Not at all?" Quistis pressed. There was something in Seifer's voice that she mistrusted, something that told her he might be lying, but what would he lie about? "He's told you nothing?"

"Well, a bit." Seifer admitted. "One thing I know there's no hardware damage. That's what Odine was pissed off about." He didn't _sound_ as if he planned to storm the lab and burn it to the ground, but Quistis had learned never to wholly trust Seifer on the subject of wholesale destruction.

"Hardware?"

"Physical damage." Seifer translated. "Software-that's mental shit, well, don't know about that. PTSD, the usual, maybe with a bit of extra Ultimecia mixed into it all. Kadowaki can deal with it if she needs to, and if not I can just live with." He looked challengingly at Quistis. "One thing I did come up with, a few days ago. The dreams -if that's what they are- they didn't really start till I came back to Garden. 'Till I met Rinoa. Maybe they're like echoes." He didn't sound convinced.

Quistis sifted through Seifer's speech. "You'd go to Dr Kadowaki?"

"Maybe. But don't get all uptight about it. It's _my_ head."

Quistis shrugged. Seifer didn't seem inclined to say more, and she knew from experience that digging for details would clam him up faster than any Silence spell. So she kicked her heels on the bench, and she watched the sky. It was worth watching.

Grey stormclouds gathered, descending to cover the tops of the tallest towers. A wind whined in the wires. By common consent, neither Seifer nor Quistis mentioned the storm. It had become a game, to see how long they could stick it out before getting soaked.

Quistis's hair crackled with static. Lights flicked on as the gloom intensified. A car-alarm shrilled in the distance. "You're not planning anything?"

Seifer grinned. "Such as?"

"Acts of violence." Quistis told him. "Possibly involving fire magic or projectile weaponry."

"You don't trust me?" Seifer said innocently. He got up and stood at the edge of the balcony, leaning over the rail and looking up at the sky like he'd never seen it before in his life.

Quistis gave him a look that said _not by a mile_. "Okay, don't listen to me. I'll say I told you so later."

"I'm not planning _anything_." Seifer told her. Quistis was almost sure he was lying. It was there in the teasing tone in his voice, in the way he avoided her eyes, in the way he changed the subject far too fast. "Hey, it looks like it's going to rain."

Quistis matched his deadpan tone. "I think you might be right."

"I'm always right." Seifer leant over the railing, looking down at the blue neon-lit city like a hawk on the wing. "Hey, the view's great from here." He pulled back, turned, and held out one hand, affecting an Estharian accent that clashed with his cropped hair and scarred forehead. "Care to join me?"

Quistis smiled in spite of herself. The fine blonde hairs on her forearms stood erect, alive with static electricity. "I may well do." Thunder grumbled in the distance and she thought of Quetzalcoatl and the phoenixes, dancing in the north.

Seifer touched the railing and cursed as a spark leapt from the metal to earth itself in his finger.

There was a thunderstorm's sense of expectation, electricity tingling in the air. She slid from the seat and joined Seifer at the railing. Her hand curved around his waist and caught at the belt-loops of his tattered jeans. Seifer's arm crept around her hips, mirroring her movement. Quistis turned to him and looped both arms round his shoulders, standing almost on tiptoe, feet arched like a dancer's. They kissed slowly, deliberately.

Quistis's mind was empty of almost everything except the cool air and her own heat when an unwanted thought invaded her mind. Squall's parting statement, delivered in his cool voice.

_Do you think you can convince him to stay?_

And although she wasn't so foolish to think that sex would convince Seifer to do anything apart from stay in bed longer, Quistis had to admit that she might have gone a long way down that path. The thought killed the mood like a bucket of ice water.

_Squall can't know-but he might have guessed._

_It isn't any of his business. _

Seifer must have picked up her sudden confusion, because he stopped and pulled back a little. "What's up?"

Quistis shook her head. "Nothing." She put Squall out of her mind, trying to forget, and moved closer to Seifer's warm body. She didn't want to tell him, he would get the wrong idea. "Garden."

He made a sound that sounded like _huh_. "Hey, forget about work." The wind was stronger now, fierce enough to whip Quistis's hair around her head, even though they were settled in the lee of the building. "You want to go inside?" His shoulders were tense under his thin T-shirt, and there were goosebumps on his arms. He leant against the railing and shifted position so his arm was around her shoulders.

Quistis shook her head. "I'm fine out here. Honestly."

Seifer frowned. "Something's the matter." he said with certainty, and Quistis thought _you picked a good time to go all sensitive on me_. But Seifer was like that, sometimes. To look at him you'd think he was blissfully oblivious to everyone and everything except himself, his opponents, and sharp pieces of pointed metal. But occasionally he'd come out with something that left you wondering just how much he absorbed.

"It's nothing." Quistis protested.

And then the rain came.

It swept across the city like a cold grey curtain. They were soaked through in seconds. The rain was desert-strength, half-a-year's worth in thirty minutes. The shock of it swept the breath from Quistis's body. Seifer bowed his head slightly under the onslaught. They could have turned and run for the roof door, but neither of them moved.

The rain washed all thoughts of the Garden and Squall from Quistis's mind. She gasped, feeling the cool pinprick of a thousand tiny drops on sun-warmed skin, and moved instinctively closer to Seifer, into the lee of the wall. Water on the lens of her spectacles dissolved the world into a surreal misty place, halos gathering around every light source. Seifer was a dark blurry object in a world of shadows and violent blue neon.

"You okay?"

He meant more than just the water, she knew. "I'm fine."

"Not cold or anything?"

Quistis slid her arm around his waist, snugging them closer. "If this bothered me, I'd be inside." There was a touch of _I don't need looking after_ in her voice.

Seifer shrugged. "Just checking."

The rain gathered strength around them. Seifer sluiced the water from his hair with his bare hands. Quistis wiped the water from the lens of her glasses and took them off as the best of a bad job. It didn't make that much difference, but she knew from experience that she'd get a blinding headache if she left them off for too long. She blinked water from her eyes and looked at Seifer.

He was staring out to the harbour, head tilted as if he was searching for something in the clouds. Unsurprisingly, he was just as drenched as she was. His faded T-shirt was soaked into transparency, so thin that Quistis could see the fine lines of his tattoo through the cotton as he turned. His tan seemed darker in the stormy gloom, the whites of his eyes and the palms of his hands paler in contrast as he moved.

Quistis smiled.

He really was very good looking, she thought, and the times she found him most attractive was when he forgot about it. Like now, his hair in a spiky scruff from running his hands through it to shake water off, his clothes slicked to his skin, scowling out to sea.

"What're you looking at?"

Seifer frowned. "Thought I saw something –oh. forget it….Maybe nothing."

Quistis followed his line of sight and saw a squat familiar shape, cloaked in stormclouds, red lights glittering from its bows as it rocked in the water. She could hear waves crashing against the harbour walls five miles away. "Galbadian Garden?"

"Not that. But let's hope it sinks."

"You shouldn't."

"I should. Kind of think I've got the right. Hell, I bet they get together every year for a ceremonial piss on my grave."

"You haven't got a grave." Quistis pointed out.

Seifer shrugged. "Doesn't matter." He slid to the side, a subtle invitation, and Quistis was in the mood to take it up. She rested both hands on the black metal handrail and Seifer wrapped himself around her back. The movement rucked her shirt up at the hem and she flinched as his hands met cold rain-soaked flesh. His breath was warm on her neck.

Quistis felt hopeless lust in the pit of her stomach. Seifer smoothed his hands down the long lines of her thighs, silk too wet to rustle.

"nn...No." she said, eventually. "We are not-mmm. We are not doing this. People might see."

"There's no one here." Seifer pointed out. He was slightly more coherent that her. Quistis reckoned all she had to do to spoil that was to spin around and work on him for maybe five minutes, and then there would be no more talking. She was sorely tempted to agree. Who would be out to see? With a storm like this, they'd all be tucked up inside safe. "Well-"

"That a yes?"

Quistis pushed her hair out of her eyes, ready to turn round and make Seifer forget his own name, let along coherent language. "I-"

And that was when she saw Balamb Garden bearing down on them through the clouds and her voice failed entirely. Seifer, who was currently occupied with biting her right earlobe, lasted for two more seconds before he looked up, muttered "oh, fuck." and then carried on.

Quistis sighed.

In her experience, most people had a mental rulebook that told them what not to do and what not to, and, in Quistis's experience, they usually felt bad when they broke them. Rules like 'do not steal', 'do not run', 'follow the crowd', 'don't stand out', 'don't cause trouble'. She had learned that Seifer had a crossed wire in his head where rules were concerned. At best he ignored them, at worse he did the exact opposite. And she suspected that 'do not make love in the pouring rain on top of tall buildings with half of Balamb watching' was one of the rules that Seifer did not have.

So she pulled away as gently as she could and tried to ignore the burning feeling inside her that was turning everything to liquid. Try as she might, she just couldn't get the image of Selphie with a pair of binoculars out of her head.

"Heyyyyy…."

"Seifer's, Garden's here."

"So?"

"People might be able to see."

Seifer raised his head for long enough to give the Garden a considered glance. "It's not that near. Just looks it. And they're leaving. Look." He disentangled his hand and pointed. "They're probably got a mooring over the other side of the city. So if you're worried about Selphie with a spyglass, then forget it. No way anybody'll be able to see."

Quistis considered. The Garden was receding, blue lights glowing in the rainy gloom. The rain itself was easing off, the clouds a paler shade of grey. The sun shone like a pale halo through the clouds towards the harbour.

"It'll take a while for them to get moored up, anyway." Seifer said persuasively. "All those cables to tie and shit."

"A long while." Quistis murmured speculatively. She realised that the rain had stopped while they were talking. Puddles lay slickly on the tiled balcony floor. She inhaled rain-saturated moisture, so thick you could drown in it. The city steamed below them, obscuring the view of Balamb Garden, which had settled somewhere in the city to the east. She ran her hands through her hair, wringing water from the end of her thick plait. Seifer's eyes followed the drops. She looked up and met his eyes, and they both realised that they had finished playing.

"Hey." he asked casually. "Want to fuck?"

Quistis smiled. "You know." she said. "That might just work." The air was charged with more than just humidity, there was a slow burn inside her, her wet clothes steaming as if every raindrop was evaporating from the searing heat of her own body rather than the sunlight. "But I insist. We'll have take this inside."

Seifer looked at her like taking it to the other side of the balcony was too much.

In fact, they didn't make it any further than the gym floor, dripping all over the tatami mats. Quistis gave Garden a perfunctory last glance, gestured over her shoulder and cast Silence, (a strictly unauthorised use of SeeD magic) just in case. She expected the spell to fail, but the glow dissipated from her fingers as it took. Seifer looked as if he would make a sarcastic comment about being too paranoid for her own good, so Quistis hooked her fingers into his belt loops and worked on him until he couldn't say anything than "fuckImissedyouHynennnyeah." followed by several words that sounded like curses in another language and a few more that didn't really sound like language at all. And by then she was making a few noises of her own, biting down hard into his shoulder, and competition didn't really matter at all.

They were half-passed out on the mats by the time the spell faded in a shower of sparkles and a sudden scent of ozone.

OOO

Seifer slipped between the billowing curtains and made his way out onto the balcony. The city was bright below him, and he thought he could make out Garden's blue lights among the neon. The puddles of water had long since evaporated, and the city had drifted back into desert heat. Above his head, insects electrocuted themselves into oblivion with the bug zapper, its blue light reflecting Balamb's lanterns perfectly.

The smoke reminded him of his missing cigarettes, of Hyne-knew how many nights spent smoking out of the window of whatever hotel or cheap room he was occupying at the time. It wasn't the nicotine so much as the habit. Seifer liked drama; he liked the theatrics of smoking as well as the drug. Or so he told himself.

_I'm not addicted, I could quit any time I wanted to. Just don't want to right now._

He leant his elbows on the rail and looked down to the street, idly checking sniper lines. Hyperion would be useless at such a range-you needed a high-powered rifle like the cowboy's-but it never hurt to keep your eye in. When he had mentally raked the quiet alleyways and courtyards below with bullets, he rested on the rail and thought about Quistis. He felt tired but not yet sleepy, mind humming at a thousand miles an hour under the veil of weariness.

Quistis was a subject that he seemed to be coming back to, lately. Two years of getting laid on a semi-regular basis and two or so years before that at Garden getting laid on a not-quite-so-regular basis, but okay, enough, had given Seifer a pretty good idea of what kind of girls he went for. They were usually brunettes with long hair, dark eyes and resilient personalities, the kind that wouldn't cry too hard when he left. He had slept with women out of lust, boredom, curiosity and, a couple of times when he couldn't afford a hotel room and they had their own apartment, out of desperation. But Quistis was different.

It wasn't just the physical type, or the fact that she was a SeeD-he'd slept with a few SeeDs before, and as long as you made it clear that you weren't thinking about any serious relationship anytime soon, they were usually good fun. It was the fact that Quistis was more or less an equal to him, but in a completely different way. The fact that there were still things about her he didn't know, and he was pretty sure he could sleep with her till the end of time and still keep exploring new territory.

He found himself looking forwards to fighting with her, to see how that played out when they weren't desperately trying to stay alive in unfavourable circumstances, and found himself getting horny as hell, despite the drowsiness.

Seifer rolled an imaginary cigarette between his fingers and sighed. He moved to the opposite side of the balcony, bare feet silent on the flagstones, and stared out in the approximate direction of Garden. The night was quiet and velvety dark around them, and it sure as hell wasn't going to tell anybody. No cameras here.

The only girl he'd ever wanted as much as Quistis had been Rinoa, and look how that had turned out. Rinoa had been an unmitigated Hyne-damned disaster, start to finish. He'd never have wanted this closeness, this intimacy, at eighteen, back when it had been all fuck-and-run, and he hadn't understood what she meant. And she'd thought that she'd known, and maybe that was worse.

_Fuck,_ Seifer thought. _I need a cigarette. Or a drink. Or two drinks._

He thought about closing the door quietly behind him and heading to the nearest bar-if they had all-night bars in Esthar, which he doubted-but decided that he didn't really want to wake Quistis. And then he heard the clink of bedsprings from deeper in the room, and realised that wasn't really a problem.

Quistis appeared at the window a moment later, wrapped in the free white towelling bathrobe that came with the room. Her hair was tucked into its usual sleeping braid, and her face was carefully blank.

She said nothing for a while, and then looked over at him, leaning on the windowframe like a magazine model in some bathroom centrepiece. Seifer thought about telling her that did she realise that she was the best thing that had happened to him in fuck knew how long, and then forgot it. Hell, it was just the tiredness talking.

Quistis took her arm from the windowframe, kicked the curtains behind her and came to stand with him. She didn't touch him. That was another thing he liked about her, she wasn't all touchy-feely, like Rinoa. He wondered how the hell Squall coped.

"Gil for your thoughts?"

Seifer scuffed bare feet on the floor. "I was thinking -if I was a sniper, then this whole district'd be pretty much pinned down. I'd need another gun, though."

Quistis leant on the railing beside him and considered the street plan. "You're right, but I'd have one more up. There, maybe, in that office building. The one with the neon arrow."

"Right." Seifer said. "Then you'd have visual right down that street. Broken Moons, too, and Half-Clock Square down that way." He scratched the paint from the wrought-iron railing, wishing for a smoke. The bug-zapper smoked and hissed behind them. Quistis smelled of soap and damp towelling.

"You're sleeping better?" she asked.

Seifer rocked a hand in the air. "So-so. No dreams. Just lose the trick sometimes." He summoned a grin. "You help."

She had the TV on by the time he walked back in, sound turned down low. There was some Galbadian import soap opera showing, something Seifer half-recognised.

Quistis snorted. "You can tell not many people watch at this time of night. I was hoping for some classic video."

"Oh yeah." Seifer said without thinking. "I know this one. She gets eaten by monsters, and it turns out they were twins."

"How'd you know that?" Quistis had obviously never figured Seifer for a soap opera addict. It showed.

"I don't sleep, Quis. I have to do something at night." In fact, he had a near- encyclopaedic knowledge of nearly every late-night TV movie released within the last ten years, and most of the major dramas. He was sketchier on soaps, but recognised a few. Fuujin had found him up one night, and laughed her ass off.

Quistis looked amused. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and then the phone beeped and she dived for it. It was Quistis' personal phone, the one with the little glyph on it that meant _Balamb_, and Seifer wondered what they wanted.

He found out soon enough, when Quistis put the phone down and turned to him.

"Better get some sleep. Squall wants us at Balamb first thing in the morning."

"So we're going to find out what's going on." Seifer said. "At fucking last."

OOO

Balamb was just as Seifer had remembered it, blue, squat and vaguely out-of place in its new surroundings. The Estharians had marked out a wide area in one of the public recreation fields for a berth, so that the building sat uncomfortably between a football pitch and a tiny wasteland area dotted with wild flowers. A makeshift road had been marked out in hardcore to join the site with the nearest expressway. It was busy with vehicles carrying supplies into the city and ferrying SeeDs both ways. Seifer and Quistis caught a lift on an empty supply truck that looked as if it had been hastily converted from carrying Chocobo stock to market. Yellow feathers floated through the air and stuck to Seifer's jeans.

They entered Garden separately, through common agreement. Quistis thanked the driver and went in straight away. Seifer hung around the truckstop until Quistis had entered, chatting with one of the mechanics, then made his way up to the lobby outside Squall's office. The desk outside was empty. Xu wasn't there, but Selphie and Quistis were.

Quistis noticed him as soon as he came in, he could tell by the angle of her head. Selphie didn't. The Trabian girl was as small and as bouncy as ever. She wore an enormous cowboy hat, its brim pierced with gold rings, and scuffed, low-heeled cowboy boots. Her dress was summery yellow silk, impractical as hell.

They were chatting. Seifer assumed it was girl talk until he caught Selphie's last sentence. "-pleasantly surprised to discover that we're not all sword-swinging gung-ho warhawks."

Quistis smiled. Seifer didn't catch her eye but she must have made a tiny motion that alerted Selphie to Seifer's presence. Selphie swung around, heels clicking on the floor, saw Seifer, and paused. "Some of us."

"Nice to see you, Selphie."

Selphie looked at Quistis like she was expecting her to faint, cry or both. When none of these things happened, her face dropped. "Oh, no. Not again."

Seifer grinned, a smile that would have corrupted angels. "Oh, yes."

Quistis just looked at Selphie with the faintest hint of a smile on her face.

"Oh, I give up." Selphie said crossly. "Do what you like."

"We're in a team with Selphie." Quistis told him.

"Oh, _great_." Seifer muttered.

"What did you say?"

Seifer summoned up a smile. "Great." It could have been worse, could have been Rinoa (who had to be one of the most useless fighters ever, in Seifer's opinion) but he would have preferred Zell. Gods, even Irvine.

Selphie fiddled with the rings stabbed through the rim of her hat, sliding each hoop through the brim. "How've you been finding Esthar, Seifer?"

Seifer leaned up against the wall. "Not really my kind of place."

"It's pretty enough, though?" Selphie said. She seemed to have forgotten that she was mad with Seifer. Having the thought processes of a hummingbird had its advantages sometimes. Nevertheless, Seifer didn't trust the blithely happy exterior. Somewhere deep inside, Selphie was still pissed off.

He tried to imagine what a girl like Selphie would consider pretty, and blanked. "Lots of…shops, I guess."

Quistis smiled at him, one of those _congratulations, you have passed Civilised Conversation 101 and are now capable of behaving like a semi-polite human being _smiles. And then the doors opened and Squall's head poked out.

"Come in."

He looked more himself than Seifer had seen for a while, wearing his leathers despite the heat, the Lionheart held crooked over one shoulder. There were lines on his face which had not been there three weeks ago and he looked like he hadn't gotten much sleep since Seifer had seen him last. His desk was covered with papers, mission reports and permits, a paperwork graveyard. The glass behind it was still stained with salt from the flight into Esthar.

"We'll have to make this short." Squall said. "I haven't got much time."

Seifer was glad. Since he had returned, most of his time spent in the office had been wasted being out-manoeuvred, outguessed or otherwise outgunned by Squall. It still seemed slightly odd that it was Leonhart sitting at the desk instead of Cid, but he guessed Cid was involved in the mission somehow. In Esthar, maybe, or at Balamb.

Squall sat down at the desk. "I've assigned you three to the city itself. You won't have to travel far."

"The city?" Quistis murmured.

"There are mines underneath. The Quarry caves. Linear entrance and exit. You'll start in the city and come out somewhere in the desert to the south. There shouldn't be too many monsters, but those that are there are likely to be more of a challenge. Your mission is to wipe them out. Quistis, you're squad leader. Use your own judgement. Selphie, Seifer, you're to support Quistis. As representatives of Balamb Garden, you are to set an example to others and abide at all times by the Garden's rules." He turned his cool gaze on Seifer. "Got that?"

Seifer nodded reluctantly. Squall's judgement was usually good, and Seifer respected that-but he'd always clashed heads with the do-as-I-say method of military authority. "Why'd you station us there, anyway?"

Squall frowned, and the scar cut deeply into his forehead. "Because I thought there was a reasonable chance that you might come out again."

_Well, I did ask,_ Seifer thought.

"None of you use projectiles much. You can't use guns in the tunnels, they blow your eardrums. Almasy, you won't be able to use your gunblade properly. That bother you?"

Seifer shook his head. He'd never used the gun much; but it was useful to get the drop on people. Swords didn't run out of bullets.

"Like I said, the monsters shouldn't be too much of a problem, but the environment is. I don't want rookies down there who'll panic and run when they're closed in."

"_Fucking tunnels_." Seifer muttered.

Squall cast a cool eye towards him. "You've still got Hyperion?"

Seifer's hand went automatically to his hip. "It's at-" he said, then paused. He'd almost said "_at Quistis's". _"At the lab. The lab. Definitely."

Squall gave him a _you're not fooling anyone_ look and Seifer wondered how much he'd guessed. "Good."

"The Estharians get kind of twitchy with weapons." Seifer said, and wondered why the hell he felt like he was apologising.

"Good to see you're learning some discretion."

A blush stained Quistis's cheeks. Seifer very carefully didn't meet her eyes. Fuck Selphie, he hoped Squall hadn't been peering out of his windows any time last night. He struck back. "What're _you_ doing on the mission?"

Squall regarded him with a distinctly unimpressed air. "I'm taking some cadets out on the plains." He shuffled some of the papers on his desk and yanked a couple of sheets deftly from the mess. It must have been some freestyle filing system, but there was no order Seifer could see. Squall handed the papers to Quistis. She took them and leafed through the file.

"Those are the maps. You'll start tomorrow morning, just before the festival kicks off. Meet at the shopping arcade at seven hundred hours. A member of the Estharian government will contact you there and give you access." He dug in a drawer. "It shouldn't take more than forty-eight hours. When you're finished, activate this-" he handed a squat plastic homing beacon to Quistis "and somebody will collect you."

Selphie rocked backwards and forwards on her heels. "We'll get to go to the festival?"

"There'll be plenty of time."

Selphie grinned. "I've got a guitar set on Stage Four with an Estharian band on Thursday. Gotta get there on time."

"Better hope they're tone-deaf." Seifer muttered. Quistis kicked him.

"Pick up what you need at the commissary before you leave. And be punctual. The Estharians won't wait."

Quistis, who to Seifer's knowledge had never been late for anything in her whole life, nodded. She turned the beacon over in her hands and slipped it into a pocket. "We will."

Squall saluted. "Good luck. You shouldn't have any problems. "

Quistis and Selphie saluted in response, pin-sharp. Seifer, caught flat-footed, managed a half-assed quasi-salute before the other SeeDs lowered their arms.

Selphie winked. "Good luck yourself, Mr, Commander!"

Squall unstiffened enough to crack a smile. "Thanks."

The usual paraphernalia of SeeD missions followed. They visited the commissary for SeeD kit, the armoury for weapons and the special shielded room off the gym to junction magic and GFs. Seifer declined the offer of a Guardian Force, though he stocked up on as much Fire magic as he could carry. He finished off with a few Protects and Shells, and dropped a few items into his pockets. When he was fully kitted up and Quistis was deep in conversation with the SeeD who ran the GF store, he grabbed Selphie, who looked round with some surprise.

"Tilmitt?"

Selphie looked up from the Shell stone she was cradling in her hands. "What?"

"Where's Irvine?"

"Oh, why do you want to know?" Selphie said, and then relented. Selphie never could stay mad for long. "He's in his office."

Seifer nodded. He turned back before he reached the door and offered a brief

"Thanks."

Selphie smiled sweetly beneath the pierced brim of her massive sombrero. "Don't mention it."

He found Irvine's office easily enough, feeling like a shabby faker against all the neatly uniformed cadets. Luckily, Irvine was in it, boots identical to Selphie's but nearly twice the size planted firmly on the desk. He had his hat tipped over his eyes, and appeared to be asleep. Music played quietly in the background and snatches of song drifted through the air.

_I'm a cowboy…on a steel horse I ride…I'm wanted, dead or alive, dead or-_

Seifer didn't particularly get on with the Galbadian and he certainly wouldn't have lost any sleep over leaving Garden without talking to him, but he was there for a reason. Irvine could get anything; he was the one all the cadets came to when they were searching for a particular item, weapon or that double-jointed Estharian twin porn video you'd always wanted.

He kicked the desk. "Hey."

Irvine tipped his hat back and met Seifer's eyes. "Hey, Almasy. Whaddya want?" He didn't sound as if he'd been asleep at all.

"Maybe I don't want anything."

Irvine snorted. "Maybe it's a cold day in the desert." He shifted in his chair and unfolded his legs from the desk. The scuffed heels of his cowboy boots hit the carpet with a soft thump.

"I need cigarettes." Seifer told him.

"Then they'll cost you." Irvine rubbed finger and thumb together.

Seifer sighed. "How much?" He closed the door behind him and sat on the desk, trying to ignore the magic burning in his fingertips. Addictive as nicotine, in its own way.

Irvine pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds from his desk drawer. "What've you got?"

"Nothing. I'll owe you some monster items or something. What do you need?"

Irvine scratched at his head. He tipped his own hat back, a black felt model with cabochon stones on the band, and looked at Seifer down his nose. He looked like he could get his own monster items, looked as if he was on the verge of telling him to fuck off, but what came out of his mouth surprised the ex-knight. "You could do me a favour."

"What?"

"You're going down the caves with Selphie and Quistis, right?"

"Yeah." Seifer wasn't surprised. Rumour travelled fast at Garden.

"Look after Selphie for me. You defend her, if she needs it. You look after her like she's wrapped in cotton wool. Not a scratch on her."

Seifer frowned, surprised. "You don't think she can handle it?"

Irvine's eyes were level and cold. In the dim light, his eye-sockets shadowed under the black felt hat, he looked just as much a killer as Seifer.

"I know what can happen in a fight. And I know you'll look after Quistis, and I know damn well you'll look after yourself, but I want you to do this too."

Seifer translated _look after Quistis, _put it together with the cowboy's little grin, and came up with an answer he didn't like. "Hell, does _everyone_ know we're back together?"

"Selphie works fast." Irvine said, and smiled, his first proper smile since Seifer had entered the room.

"It's been _ten minutes_. That's not fast, that's fuckin' supernatural."

Irvine's grin widened. "Is that a yes?"

"Yeah, okay. Okay."

Irvine tossed him the cigarettes. "All I've got. Don't tell Selphie."

Seifer caught the packet neatly. He ripped open the cardboard pack, checked the contents and stowed them away in a pocket. "I'd have done it anyway, you know."

Irvine looked at him with those blue sniper's eyes. "Maybe you would. But I feel better about it this way. This way we both get something we want." He smiled again, and the mood broke. "Just don't tell my sunshine about the cigarettes, okay? She doesn't know I smoke."

"I won't if you don't tell Quistis." Seifer said. "Deal?"

Irvine stretched out a tanned hand. "Deal." His handshake was strong and firm.

Seifer shook his hand and sized him up, reckoned he'd have the edge, even unfit, if it really came down to it. And he knew that Irvine knew it, and he knew that Seifer knew he knew it, and that was okay with him.

He met Quistis back at the commissary and made it out of Garden without her noticing either his absence _or_ the cigarettes, a minor miracle. In fact, he made it all the way through the day without her noticing. Quistis was sharp, she'd spot them eventually, but Seifer didn't care.

He didn't visit the lab again. They picked up take-out at some dockside deli, and went to bed early.

OOO

The streets were very quiet the next morning. It was a short lifter journey from the Palace to the shopping arcade, but Quistis had insisted they arrive early. Seifer, who'd been awake anyway, hadn't felt like quarrelling. Besides, he was as eager as she was to fight. Probably more.

They were leaving the lifter station-a shallow disc set into the glass walkway-when a bum sitting on one of the seats looked up and called out to Seifer.

"Almasy? Need a word!"

Seifer squinted. The tramp was dressed in a familiar pale blue chambray shirt. He sat on the floor at the very edge of the walkway, heedless of the drop, and scattered handfuls of crumbs to the scraggly flock of pigeons that cooed and fluttered at his feet.

"Laguna?"

Quistis heard him stop behind her and turned, her eyes questioning, tapping her watch. "Seifer? We've only got ten minutes."

"Go on." Seifer said, absently. "I'll meet you at the arcade."

"Don't be late."

"I'll be there."

Laguna smiled reassuringly. "I shouldn't worry. The official might be late. We've got time. A quick chat, that's all."

Seifer unclipped Hyperion from his belt. He walked across the junction and sat down next to Laguna, kicking pigeons out of the way. "Hell, so much for your freelance idea. Looks like I've been co-opted by the SeeDs."

Laguna shrugged and smiled. He tossed another handful of feed to the pigeons and brushed seed from his palms.

Seifer crooked Hyperion across his shoulder. "Why're you here?" he asked the President suspiciously. He didn't think for one minute that the meeting was accidental.

"I want to make a deal." Laguna said simply.

"What?"

"I need to tell you some important information before you leave. In return, I want you to do one thing for me."

Seifer reached into his pocket and pulled out the pack of Marlboro Reds Irvine had given him. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long story. "This favour-it's nothing harmful?"

"Of course not. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"What is it?"

Laguna he held up a finger "I can't tell you. It won't make much sense unless I tell you what I have to say. And I can't risk telling you unless you've agreed to do this favour for me. Sorry and all that, it's just the way it is."

Seifer scowled at him. He put Hyperion down, struck a match on the walkway floor and lit up "Seems we have a problem."

"Not really." Laguna said mildly.

Seifer shrugged. Cold metal tickled inside his shirt, reminding him of Laguna's dog-tags. He reached up and unclipped them from the back of his neck. "All right. So what's up?" He handed the tags to Laguna, who looked at them like he'd never expected them to see them again. "Think these are yours."

The President of all Esthar wrapped the chain around his hand. Pigeons pecked at the dangling tags and Laguna shooed them away. "You moved out of the lab." he said. It wasn't a question.

"You don't miss much, do you? Just like Leonhart."

Laguna smiled, erasing any resemblance to Squall. Leonhart never smiled so fast or so easily. "I thought I'd tell you something before you leave."

"You said. I'm listening. What's it about?"

"Odine."

Seifer scowled. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, held the smoke for as long as he could before exhaling.

Laguna's tone was as light and as cheerful as if he was discussing a party, or the music festival. "Did he tell you he used to be Adel's knight?"

_Adel's knight? Odine? _It made absolutely no sense to Seifer at first, and then it began to make a lot more. He shook his head, remembering the little scientist hunched over his post-mortem and wheezing in his heavily-accented voice. _"I have my own interest in this particular area of research." _"You're wrong. Adel didn't have a knight."

"Think what you like." Laguna said. "She did."

Seifer took a deep rag on his cigarette. Thoughts flickered through his kind, first _no_ and then _yes_ and then _that could work_, and then _shit, I am so going to kill that lying little asshole next time I get my hands on him._

"Sorceresses have knights to protect them. That weedy little shit couldn't protect Adel. Hell, she backed him up. They practically ran the….place."

"Why do you think he invented the Odine bangles? "

"He designed her prison!"

"Adel was overconfident. Odine used his bangles to prevent the bond from forming completely. She didn't realise until it was too late. Which was mega lucky for us, really."

Seifer inhaled sharply on his cigarette. "So he knew pretty much what he was doing the whole time? And you still keep him around?"

"I let you stay, didn't I?" Odine said mildly.

"And it isn't just chance, that you've told me this when I'm too far to do anything about it? When I'm probably never going to see Odine again?"

"Maybe."

Seifer snorted. He ran his fingers down the keen blade of the gunblade in his lap, hands automatically checking the edge for nicks in an automatic response.

Laguna cocked his head. "Is that your gunblade? Can I have a look?"

"Yeah. Just don't drop it." Seifer said. He considered adding "It's sharp." and then realised that whatever Laguna's ditzy exterior implied, he knew how to handle weapons.

Laguna picked Hyperion up and sighted down the blade. "It's kind of old…"

"It's vintage, dammit." Seifer said irritably. "Look, enough with the weapons crap. Why'd you tell me this?"

"I just thought you'd like to know." Laguna handed the gunblade back.

"It sure explains a lot." Seifer admitted. "So that's why he was interested in me? As a comparison?"

"Odine was always interested in the Sorceresses. I think that's why Adel chose him, but I'm must admit I'm not sure. I was very young at the time. Didn't pay much attention to the news, if you know what I mean."

"So why wasn't he happy with what he found?"

"He's frightened."

"Why?"

Laguna shrugged. "How much do you know about the wars with Adel?"

"Not much. You lured her into Odine's tomb, locked her up and sent her into orbit. That's right, yeah? And then you were this big hero, and everyone was so grateful they made you president, 'cause everyone said it couldn't be done."

"True. But there was something else. The government of Esthar wanted to try Odine for post-war crimes. We have capital punishment here, in case you didn't know. It would have gone hard with him, but Odine based his defence on the fact that he couldn't have been her knight. Because of the bangles, you see. And he won."

Seifer was having trouble taking all this in. "But you just said he _was_."

"Yep. Odine based his defence on the fact that a surviving Knight would be…psychologically disturbed. Incapable, if you like, of normal functioning."

Seifer recognised the phrase from Odine's interrogations. "Worse than me?"

"Considerably."

"Bet he was delighted when I went missing."

"I think so. I'm imagining he wasn't too pleased when you turned up in Balamb again. Working for the SeeDs, no less. A position of trust and respect."

Seifer snorted. "Balls." He hadn't been much respected at his time at Garden, and he doubted he'd been much trusted. Feared, maybe, though, and that was close enough for government work.

Laguna continued. "Even in Esthar, Odine must have heard rumours. There was a story that you had left Garden, that you'd been unable to cope with the discipline. Odine was delighted. He'd have gone to Centra hoping to find you, I'm sure."

Seifer remembered the day on the beach, the swift white ship moored in Edea's harbour and Odine's apparent surprise. "You mean he knew where I'd be?"

Laguna shrugged. He had finished the pigeon feed by now and the flock was drifting faithlessly away in small groups, leaving cracked husks of shell and white droppings on the pathway. "Odine knows about sorceresses. Unfortunately for him, but rather fortunately for me, you've turned out to be disappointingly normal. I can't predict what Odine will do next, but I would advise you to watch your back."

"I can look after myself." Seifer said automatically. "But why now? Why the fuck tell me now?"

"I thought you had a right to know. You'll soon be leaving Esthar. And I doubt very much you'll see Odine again."

Seifer grinned like a shark. "Oh, I'll make sure I see him."

Laguna shook his head. "You won't. Remember our bargain. The information was in trade for a favour, and I need Odine." He reached up and fastened the dog-tags around his neck again, sliding the pendants beneath his shirt. "You will finish your mission and you will leave Odine alone. Got that?"

"I guess I promised." Seifer said ruefully. He didn't have a problem with breaking any promise if he really needed to, and he would dearly have liked to get his hands on the little scientist, but…well, he'd promised. And he almost always kept his word.

"You still have a kind of honour." Laguna said. "Despite your reputation."

Seifer grinned around his cigarette. "Despite my reputation, huh?"

"I need Odine." Laguna said. "The city needs him. He's useful, and I would like to keep him that way. That won't change any time soon, I'm afraid." He laced the chain of his necklace between his fingers and looked at Seifer, his grey eyes such a clear mirror of his son's that Seifer shivered. "Do I have your word?"

"For what it's worth."

"Good." Laguna tapped his watch, an expensive model that didn't really sit with the rest of his outfit. "Now, I must be leaving. The officials will only hold off so long, and I have a meeting to go to." He got up, straightened the tail of his shirt, and headed off back towards the lifters. "And you have a mission to attend. Don't be late."

"What?" Seifer glanced at his watch. "Shit."

He stubbed out his cigarette and stood in the centre of the walkway for a minute, blade in hand, staring after Laguna, then turned and jogged off in the direction of the shopping centre. Fuck revelations. His plan was in ruins, but Seifer could wait. The mission wouldn't.

He ran down the transparent walkways, garnering a few odd looks as he went. The soldier caste didn't fit well with the Estharian class-system, and they still weren't sure how to take this officially-sanctioned invasion. A few bars and shops had added discreet posters, hoping to tout for business, but the air of celebration present at the official welcoming events was nowhere in evidence. Nobody was quite sure how to react. The technocracy wondered what to make of these child soldiers, their casual clothes and easy smiles in sharp contrast to the native troops, nervous and dressed in never-seen-combat fatigues.

As he ran, Seifer realised that he'd forgotten to wear the hat. He hadn't really forgotten, it was in his bag, but it had seemed stupid to wear a beanie through Esthar's baking streets. He'd spent the last week in the company of soldiers, had forgotten how the Estharians couldn't deal with scars. It was visible in the way their eyes flicked to the side and then slid away again. In Balamb, scars were an occupational hazard, removed with enough time and healing magic. When he had been nineteen, trawling all the worst parts of the world in an effort to forget who he'd been and what he'd done, his scars had meant that he could be easily beaten, and he'd had fun proving people wrong about that. Scars had no place in the Estharians' bubble-wrapped tech-worshipping society, they were archaic, like the gunblade, and like the weapon they scared people.

He caught sight of Selphie's distinctive silhouette as he reached the shopping arcade. She'd decided to forgo her yellow dress and was kitted out instead in a canary-coloured sweater. Underneath she wore black combats and boots, much like Seifer himself

"You're here." She sounded disappointed.

"Yeah."

"You're _late_."

"Has the official turned up yet?"

"No." Selphie admitted.

"Then I'm not late. Yet."

Quistis turned around from examining a machine that Seifer would have sworn stocked girl's panties. "What's the matter? What did Laguna want?"

"You look..weird." Selphie said, considering.

"It's nothing. He just wanted his dog tags back. It can wait."

"It's going to have to." Selphie pointed out the figure of a man in long Estharian government robes making his way towards them. "Here we go!"

The official had a letter of authorisation and the brisk manner of somebody who had three other groups to organize before breakfast. He unlocked a studded black door set in between a couple of shops and led the small group down a few steep flights of stairs. The stairs opened out into a large room, set several floors below shop level. Two walls were made from cut and dressed stone, pale limestone like all of Esthar's non-glass architecture. The third wall was a raw rockface, chisel marks clearly visible. The cave mouth took up the whole of the last wall.

It was larger than Seifer had expected, about twice his height and roughly oval. The floor sloped steeply upwards towards the cave mouth and became stonier the closer it got. Vegetation hung down like green hair over the mouth, moving gently with air currents. A black metal grille covered the gap, rooted firmly in the stone.

Selphie stood with her mouth open. "How come it's down here?"

"It used to be on ground level." the official said sadly. "Over the years our city has risen. The workings were mined out over a hundred years ago. It's been bricked up ever since."

Quistis ran a gloved hand gently over the rough stone. "Amazing."

"Have you the maps?"

Quistis touched the plastic folder that hung around her neck. She was dressed in a dark sweater under a thick leather vest that fastened up to the neck with silver clasps. Her trousers were tucked into the top of tall leather boots. "Yes."

"Ready?"

They all three of them shared a rueful glance, a team for a second. "Yes." Quistis said, quietly.

"You bet!"

"I guess." Seifer said, unenthusiastically. The caves looked larger than he had expected, but he still wasn't crazy about the thought of mines.

The official unlocked the door with a large metal key and drew back. "Here you go."

Selphie gave him an impossibly sweet smile. "Thank you." she said, and the official unbent enough to give her a thinlipped grin in return. "Guys, this is going to be _fun_."

Seifer and Quistis exchanged glances.

Seifer groaned.

OOO

Across the other side of the city, a sensor robot crouched above the main air-conditioning vent of Odine's laboratory. In the recesses of its tiny insect mind it was confused and nervous. Several of its fellows had stopped transmitting, and the link to the main security system had been severed. This wouldn't normally have been a problem-the spybots were slaved to Odine's personal security service, after all- but taken together it was enough to make the bot very edgy. Compared to its visual functions, the robot's audio functions were limited indeed, but it kept picking up an odd sound on its transmitters. The noise sounded like a metallic centipede. It would fade out now and again, in little rushes, but it was getting closer.

The robot sat on the very edge of the ventilation grille and shivered.

Through the metal slats it could visualise Odine clearly. He was seated at his desk, light glancing from the bald spot right on top of his head. His hands twisted on a pencil. The robot was just intelligent enough to ascribe this behaviour to the parameter nervous human His hand darted towards a white plastic call button on his desk, and then darted away again. He was sweating.

The strange audio became louder. Even restricted as it was, the robot's hearing was fifty times better than the human's sitting below him. The robot clung desperately to the slats and searched the airwaves for any linking feeds. It found only static.

The human below him finally stabbed the call button. The robot watched as a white-coated lab aide entered. The thunder of the human's voice almost fried its audio sensors, which the robot had turned up to its maximum in order to keep track of the strange noise echoing along the ducts. It turned them down and initiated recording function.

"Yes, sir?"

Odine turned around in his chair. "Get me Martine." he said. "I have a job for Galbadia Garden."

The robot, who was not equipped with self-preservation sensors, recorded all this, and shivered. Its programming was to keep sensors trained on Odine's laboratory and any other designated sites at all times, but it was fighting a primitive, almost animal, urge to spin and look behind it. Even with its audio receptors turned down to minimum, it could still hear the strange tapping noise. It cross-checked its memory banks, comparing the noise to the stealthy creeping sounds of its fellow robots. The noise was basically the same, magnified a thousand times.

And then it stopped.

The robot risked a swift look behind it. It refocused its visual sensors, a process which took only seconds, and caught a brief glance of metal jaws, long legs stung with wire tendons, and red and green flashing LEDs.

The robot emitted a high-pitched squeak that in translation, would have passed as panic. It moved one leg backwards onto the grille.

Seifer's mousetrap lunged. The robot's sensors failed.

Two metres below, Odine brushed a few spot of clear oil from the papers on his desk and waited for Martine to call him back. hates my formatting, It is official.

Well, looks like we're almost done. Things are beginning to come together and it's all winding down. There should be a couple of chapters after this one. I've already written most of the penultimate one, and am hoping to finish the whole thing before starting a new job in a couple of weeks. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

Apologies for the long pauses between updates, but have been on holiday to Norway, where I saw Zell (minus tattoo) dry-stone-walling outside our hostel. Small world, huh?

Alternative music for this chapter is the Kaiser Chiefs' 'Modern Way', available at all good record shops near you. I'd also like to plug my new lj, (see author page). There's a fst up at the moment-go grab it!

Reviews:

Alucius: Why thankyou Not long now. What will I do?

Ash: Thanks.

Asga: hope this was soon enough for ya!

Ghost140: You're right. This is as normal as it gets. Now, the mission should be pretty straightforward but as we know things tend to get a little bit complicated around these guys.

Kit Spooner: I'm short, dark, much less violent than this story would have you believe and firmly believe that Seifer is, in fact, an asshole. It's lucky that most of it is told from his point of view. Gotta love what's going on in his head.

Mana Angel: Hope you like more Laguna. He's kind of an idiot savant.

Melete: My version of Seifer was originally heavily based on the 'Storm Suite Gathering' series by one of the infamous Technomancers. He's kind of evolved since then, but if you want good stuff, search for 'Storm Suite' and for 'Room Of The Host' which is linked off the RPGamer fanfiction site, at the bottom.

SAK4: Hey, I never review. Don't worry. Thanks for the compliments.

Seventhe: Still like your new pairing. Keep writing-more ff7 too? I love your Cid.

Superviolist: Well, I'm still not sure what's going on with Seifer, but this explains a bit.

Zoro: I will finish this damn thing if it kills me. Or any of my characters.

And if anybody knows any good Supernatural fanfic, drop me a line! It's a stupid show, but the leads are just so goddamn pretty!

Kate

(driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole)


	18. Chapter Seventeen: Monster

Recovering The Satellites

What's that coming over the hill?

Is it a monster? Is it a monster?

The Automatic-Monster

'Monsters, huh? That sucks.'

-Zell Dincht.

OOO

Chapter Seventeen: Monster.

The cave was dark, and damp, and nearly silent. Inside, it was surprisingly spacious, with a high ceiling and vaulted pillars that gave it a cathedral air. A heavy-cut square opening in the right-hand wall led off into the darkness. A faint breeze drifted from it, carrying the sound of dripping water and the occasional screech of a monster.

Seifer dug a headlight from a pocket of his combat trousers and flicked it on. Selphie followed suit. Quistis already had her headlamp fixed and was busy scanning the tunnel for monsters, cross-checking their location on her map.

Selphie glanced across at the plan. "Doesn't look too hard."

"Great. Now you've doomed us." Seifer said. He picked a chunk of stone up from the cave's gravelled floor. It was pale and grainy, soft enough for a fingernail to leave a mark. "It's going to make the SeeD test look _easy."_ He threw the rock off into the shadows, where it bounced and clicked unseen before rolling to a halt.

Quistis looked up from the map." The SeeD test _was_ easy. And this bit of the mine shouldn't be too hard. It's the part later on we've got to worry about."

"How come?"

"Deeper tunnels. More monsters."

Seifer moved to the cave mouth. "_Great_." He stirred the gravel with the tip of Hyperion, noticing the lack of prints. Nobody had ventured down here for a long, long time.

Quistis checked the whip clipped to her belt. "Everybody junctioned?"

"We're not rookies." Seifer pointed out. "You don't have to ask."

Selphie leaped to Quistis's defence. "She's just checking." Her tone was so sunny that Seifer would have thought everything was fine between them until she noticed how she was avoiding him. Selphie might have forgiven him for ordering the destruction of Trabia Garden during the wars, but she still remembered him making her best friend cry.

He rolled his eyes. "I _know_."

Quistis didn't even look up from the map. "I'll take that as a yes. All right, we're heading out. I'll go on point. We'll swap later. Affirmative?"

They both nodded.

"Let's go, then."

Despite Seifer's fears, there was plenty of room inside the caves to swing a sword. It was almost as if they had been designed for fighting, save for the lack of light. The roof was high, but not too high to be reached with the point of a sword. The floor was smooth and flat, broken only occasionally by puddles of water. And there were a few monsters, but not anything they couldn't cope with easily.

The first monster was an Imp, and Quistis snatched it out of the air with Save The Queen without breaking a sweat. The second, a Creep, was smarter. It hid in the shadows and lunged out as Selphie walked past, snatching at the sleeve of her yellow sweater with three-inch claws that would have severed Selphie's forearm had she been foolish enough to leave it there. Instead she whipped her arm back and brought Strange Vision round in a flat curve which didn't stop until it had cracked through the monster's skull and impacted on the rocks underneath. The Creep went limp and Selphie kicked it back into the shadows.

"Nice one." Quistis said approvingly.

Selphie bowed. "Thanks."

Seifer caught a flash of purple leathery wings in his torch beam and shouted "Duck."

The first Imp caught the edge of Seifer's gunblade and reached the opposite wall in two more-or-less equal pieces. The remaining two were faster. One ricocheted from the wall like a well-aimed baseball, heading for Selphie. The second turned on a gil piece and headed for Quistis.

Seifer could have told the Imp that it was making a bad mistake, but he didn't have time. Quistis's whip caught the little monster around one leg and added momentum to its dive. There was a sharp crack as its body exploded against the cave wall.

Seifer looked around for the last Imp, but it was nowhere to be seen. His headlight caught a flash of bright yellow wool. Selphie stood stock-still in the centre of the floor.

"I've been blinded." Her voice was tight and controlled.

"I'm on cover." Quistis called.

Seifer dug in his combat trousers for eye-drops, reached out for Selphie's hand and stuffed the bottle in her palm. He heard a rustle of wings behind him, wrapped Selphie's fingers around the drops and turned in one swift motion.

For a second he though that Selphie had spun around and was behind him with Quistis, their paired headlights gleaming in the darkness. But the cave was cold enough that he could feel Selphie's body heat at his back, a fuzzy haze of warmth, and he realised that the lights were the remaining Imp's eyes, hovering six inches from his own face.

"Shit."

The Imp blinked, and shattered. Ice crystals stung Seifer's head.

"Cutting it close."

Quistis smiled. "Don't complain."

"Just saying." Seifer wiped Imp blood from Hyperion's cutting edge with the sleeve of his sweater. He heard glass smashing to his left as Selphie let the medicine bottle shatter on the rocks. "That work?"

"Worked just fine." Selphie said. She scrubbed at her face with a rag. "Ewww. Did you have to make it splatter so much?"

"Don't complain." Seifer told her, and shared a smile with Quistis.

They moved off again without comment, leaving the small corpses behind them. Quistis moved fast but stealthily in front, covering ground thoroughly. Her hips swayed in front of him as she sidestepped, raking the white rocky walls with an interrogating gaze before moving onto the next section.

"This is getting old." Selphie muttered from behind Seifer. "The tunnels all look the same."

Seifer watched the way Quistis's knees bent as she walked, admiring the way she rolled her weight onto the ball of foot and then to the toe in her supple high leather boots. She didn't move a single stone as she walked. The boots suited her, he decided, the boots, and the tight, dark brown trousers she had tucked into them. "Speak for yourself." he said to Selphie, quietly. "I could do this all day." _Or at least till the batteries in my flashlight run out, but hell, I've got spares._

Selphie followed Seifer's flashlight beam. "Pervert."

"Look who's talking."

Selphie raised her voice. "Quistis! He's looking at your-" She broke off as Seifer kicked her. "Ow! Meanie!"

"I'm allowed to look at whatever I like. It's kind of like a perk."

"Sssh." Quistis hissed back. "I'm concentrating."

Seifer grinned. It was unfair of Selphie to say that all of his attention was concentrated on Quistis's ass, because he was a pro at what he did and keeping an eye on the area around him came naturally, but he was experienced enough to pay slightly more attention to one particular area of his surroundings without letting his guard down.

"Get a grip, Almasy." Selphie muttered.

"Oh, I _want_ to."

Selphie knocked him in the ribs with the handle of her nunchucks. "Just because your boots are at the bottom of her bed again doesn't give you the right to be an asshole."

"What are you two talking about?" Quistis called from in front.

"Nothing." Seifer said.

"We're talking about sex." Selphie called cheerfully.

Seifer could have sworn he saw Quistis's pace falter for a second and pick up again, but she didn't sound particularly disturbed. He reckoned if you hung around Selphie for long enough you got used to it.

"Don't you think about _anything_ apart from sex?" she called.

Selphie looked puzzled. "'Course. Sometimes I think about all the suffering people in the world." She grinned. "And then I think that if they all started having sex, their lives would be so much brighter."

Quistis didn't deign to reply. Her hands glowed as she cast a Blizzaga at a pair of Bats in the corridor ahead. Seifer sighted to her left and followed it up with a Fira that left him coughing and blinking smoke out of his eyes. Selphie ducked down as they passed the smoking bodies to pick up a Dynamo Stone.

"I can't believe Squall assigned us both to the same team." Seifer muttered.

Selphie stowed the stone away in one of the many pockets sewn to her sweater. "Don't be grumpy. Teamwork is what SeeD's all about! Having a buddy makes it, like, infinity times better."

"Depends on the buddy."

"Hey, if you can't say anything nice-"

"You're only trying to get on my fucking nerves."

Selphie trailed her hands along the cave wall, wiping black Creep-blood onto the gritty surface. "Then why stop? It's working so well."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

"Asshole."

"At least I don't only use a sword because I can't deal with anything more complicated."

"At least _my_ weapon's got moving parts. Nunchucks suck. You suck."

Selphie grinned. "Only on request."

It took a lot to faze Seifer, but Selphie always managed it. "You're one fucked up little munchkin. Hey, Imp. Nine o'clock. Your side."

Selphie stuck her tongue out at him. Her hands glowed with a spell, brightening into white fire as Seifer watched. He leaned his head to one side as Selphie's Holy rocketed past his ear and hit the Imp dead centre. It knocked the monster from the air and spent it spinning down the cave wall, tiny clawed hands beating impotently at the magic igniting its fur. Its squeaky voice shrilled curses at them until Seifer trod on its head.

Quistis glanced back at them both and rolled her eyes. "If you can't play nice-"

"What?" Seifer said, innocently. "Truth hurting, Tilmitt?"

Selphie put her hands on her hips. "Nunchucks are _so_ a proper weapon!"

"So not."

"Are. And if you say different, then I'll Holy your ass."

"I'm _scared_."

"You should be." Selphie said, and paused, cocking her head on one side. Seconds later, Seifer heard what she had picked up on. There was a strange sound coming from the tunnels up ahead.

Quistis slowed, sidestepping with more than her usual care. "If you've quite finished behaving like twelve-year-olds?" she hissed.

"What is it?"

Quistis stopped entirely. "The tunnel widens out up ahead." she hissed. "And I can hear something."

Selphie nodded. "Me, too."

"Seifer, you go on point. I'll use Shiva. Selphie, you're on casting duty. Magic and items."

"Hear ya."

Seifer flicked the tip of Hyperion, sending the last drops of Imp blood spattering along the gravel. "Got it." He edged in front of Quistis. "Let's hope they're not getting smart."

Quistis snaked the whip along the ground. "Let's hope they're not."

It wasn't more than ten paces to the tunnel end. Seifer walked them carefully, Hyperion balanced and ready in his right hand. The noise of running water whispered from the cavern in front of him, backed by another, more sinister sound that reminded him vaguely of the hospital in Trabia.

_Yeah, what was that? Sounds familiar, and it's no Ruby Dragon…._

He reached the cavern edge, and looked down. The cave wasn't large, vaulted like the rest of the tunnels, its floor gravelled with rough pale stones. Black, sinuous shapes undulated among the gravel.

Seifer realised exactly what the sound had reminded him of. He jumped back as long claws flicked up from the floor, scoring deep scratched in the leather. Red eyes glowed in the light of his headlight, and light glittered from long teeth drawn in permanent grins.

"Selphie! Creep nest! Burn the fuckers!" he called and moved out into the room, using the tip of Hyperion to trace the movement of Creeps buried under the floor. Quistis was already summoning. Seifer could hear her whispering. Selphie was at his back, whispering the words of a spell as she used her Strange Vision to hammer a Creep into mush.

The nearest monster hissed and lunged, and instinct took over. The ex-knight slid to the side, slashing a jagged rent through the first Creep. Half a dozen of its pack fell on the twitching corpse. They exploded in a ball of flame as Selphie hurled a Flare Stone into the mass.

"Shiva." Quistis said softly. Seifer caught a glimpse of her head flung back, pale throat exposed as she flung one hand out, frost curling in ornate ferns from her fingertips. He ducked, yellow jumper flashing in the corner of his eye as Selphie threw herself to the side. Her nunchucks swung as she dived, and one Creep flailed back with a foreleg hanging uselessly.

"Diamond Dust!"

The ice goddess exploded into being above their heads. Seifer's breath smoked in the air. Selphie had dived to the ground, and he would have done the same if there hadn't been a nest of snarling baby Creeps right in front of him. Shiva blasted half of the nest into powdery snow, and flakes of frost melted on the sleeves of Seifer's sweater. He checked behind him to make sure Quistis was all right and threw up a Shell as the air around one of the adult Creeps in the centre of the room began to glow ominously.

Selphie screamed. "_Seifer_!"

There was no terror in her voice, but that didn't stop Seifer from swinging round to check on her just as fast as he could. As he spun Selphie hammered apart a hatchling that was heading for her face. Another had its sharp teeth buried in the heel of her cowboy boot. The third raked open her calf with a swipe of its claws. Selphie didn't move, but he could see sweat breaking out on her forehead in the glimmer of their lamps.

Seifer took that one out nearly contemptuously, raking the tip of Hyperion across its weasel-sized body in an X-pattern that separated its body into four neat sections. Selphie sat up and mashed the Creep hanging from the heel of her boot into a smear of bloody jelly. Seifer hacked apart another monster that lunged at her back, and realised that he was enjoying himself. He flicked black Creep blood from the tip of the gunblade and moved deeper inside the room.

"Summoning!" Quistis called from the entrance. Seifer was out of rage, so he didn't bother to duck again. The thin black bodies of the Creeps were fewer now, but there were still enough to be a threat. Shiva's Diamond Dust took care of most of them and Seifer waded into the nest to hack at the remainder, Hyperion poised. He could feel the metal grip, cool in his hand, but it didn't stop himself thinking of himself as Seifer-and-sword, one unit. It always happened in battles, the gunblade so perfectly balanced that it ceased to be a weapon and became only an extension of his arm.

The truth was that there was something about him that never felt complete without the sword in his hand. Whether it was duelling or monster-hunting, or missions, it was something he needed.

It felt good.

He minced the juvie Creeps into bloody shreds as tiny clawed hands tugged and pulled at his jeans. They were small enough that Hyperion passed through their bodies without any trouble, jolts reverberated up his arm as the blade struck the rocky floor below. Seifer tasted the dry quick feeling of magic in the air as Selphie cast again, and then there were no more Creeps left to fight.

Quistis moved up to stand near him, dusting snowflakes from her hands. They floated in the dark pools of oily Creep blood like salt on winter pavements. Selphie leaned against the wall and checked the rents in her leg, calmly pulling a Hi-potion from her belt.

Seifer shot a sidelong glance at Quistis, rubbing at the stubble on his jaw. He'd forgotten to shave. Again. "We came through that okay." He grinned, goofy with endorphins.

"Efficient." Quistis tapped her fingernails on the rocky cavern wall. "You don't need a potion?"

"Nah, I'm fine. Lucky, I guess." Seifer said. And he was. He always had been, when it came to fighting. Less so, when it came to other things. The essence of fighting was very simple. You just made sure that you were not where you opponent's weapon was, and that he, or she, or it (SeeDs being strictly equal opportunities on this point) was in the way of yours.

Seifer was very good at that part. In the end, it all came down to luck.

To win, you had to be lucky in every fight you started. But to lose, you had to be unlucky once. Seifer had the luck of a dozen black cats wreathed in four-leaf clovers, save for when Squall Leonhart was involved. He'd been glad of it on a number of occasions, and today was not likely to be the last. "You?"

Quistis shook her head. "Not a scratch." Purple ichor glued strands of her hair together and there were dark streaks on her leather vest.

Seifer looked her over sneakily, just to check, and couldn't find anything. He felt a pang of concern for her and buried it instantly, taking care not to show it. Quistis could look after herself.

_Hell, you know I'd fight monsters for you, if you wouldn't hate me for it…._

Quistis touched the walls again. There was a tiny frown line between her eyes that Seifer only ever saw when she was pissed off, worried, or both. He thought he might have missed it before, fighting with Selphie-and that was good again, just like old times. There was something fun about verbal sparring with an opponent who didn't just haul off and hit you or refuse to sleep with you afterwards.

"You're not claustrophobic, are you?"

"Of course not." Quistis snapped. "I'm fine, okay?" She seemed composed enough, but her movements were ever-so-slightly jerky. Whatever was affecting her, she wasn't letting it affect her much. Which was just like Quistis, all the way through.

"Maybe not, but being down here's sure bothering you. Me, too. We're caught like fucking rats in a trap down here." Seifer said. He adjusted the settings on his headtorch and felt rather than saw her turn her head to look at him. "Hell of a place to fight."

"It doesn't bother me." Quistis said.

Seifer thought she looked maybe a tiny relieved that he wasn't the only one to find their surroundings deeply, deeply unappealing. "Well, you're hiding it well." He moved in and slid an arm round her neck. When she didn't react, he slid the other arm round her shoulders and leant forwards until his mouth was millimetres away from her ear. She smelled of salt and Creep blood. "But you're a really…bad….liar."

Selphie coughed loudly from the other side of the cave. "Quistis? What's up?"

"Nothing." they said in unison. Quistis smiled.

Selphie shrugged. There was a fresh bandage tied round her left leg, but she seemed cheerful enough. "There's water over there. A pool. I found it."

Seifer unzipped a pocket of his trousers and took out a clear plastic water canteen, the kind that looked like a plastic bag until you filled it up. "Come on, I need a drink."

The pool was a synthetic shade of blue. Minerals rimed its rim, gleaming copper-green and sulphur-yellow in the light of their torches. Lights shone dimly under the water, pale and alien in the depths.

"What about them?" Selphie asked. She hunkered down a safe distance from the pool, knees drawn close to her chest, and produced a second canteen. "Pretty."

"What about 'em? Fuck 'em. They should've paid us more." Seifer said, but he was careful not to touch the surface of the water with his bare hands. He drank and passed the canteen to Quistis. The water was cool and salty with minerals.

Quistis tilted the canteen. "They haven't paid us at all, yet." she said, and wiped her mouth daintily with the arm of her sweater.

"See what I mean?" Seifer tracked the lights, trying to estimate size and monster type. "Whaddya think?"

Quistis looked down into the water. "I think we can leave them alone." she said. The pale glow from the monster-ridden pool caught a spark along her collarbone and she reached up to touch something hung around her neck, threading gems and silver through her fingers.

Seifer squinted. "You're wearing your necklace."

"Yes."

"Looks good."

"Thanks." Quistis' tone was carefully non-committal. Selphie looked at them both with raised eyebrows, shrugged and turned away

"What's her problem?" Seifer said. He drained the canteen and zipped it back into the pocket of his trousers.

Quistis touched the necklace again. "I think she's giving us some space. I mean, that's nice of her, but I'm not really in the mood. Being covered in Imp blood does that to me."

Seifer reached up and fanned strands of Quistis's hair through his hands. "Shame." They both blinked as Selphie's light hit them, but Seifer didn't let go of Quistis, and she didn't let go of the necklace.

"Hey, don't mind me. Go right on."

Seifer gave her the finger and let go. "I thought you'd wandered off."

"Hoped, you mean." Selphie knelt down by the pool, careless of any wandering tentacles of marauding creatures. "Maybe we could bring some dynamite down here. Go fishing."

"If you think I'm carrying anything explosive down here, go fuck yourself."

"If you're trying to insult me, tell me to do something I don't enjoy."

"If you _both _would just shut up for one second, it might give me time to work out where we're going." Quistis said.

Seifer sat down on a rock and began to disassemble his gunblade, cleaning monster blood from the chambers. Selphie wandered around, examining the hacked-out walls.

OOO

Quistis tried to concentrate on the map.

She had realised quite quickly that it wasn't the tight spaces which worried her-though they made it treacherously difficult to bring any weapons to bear. What really bothered her was the knowledge that there were thousands of tons of rock above her head. And on top of the rocks was a layer of concrete, and on top of _that _was a whole city.

Quistis told herself that the rocks (if not the concrete or the city) had been there for millions of years and that it would be unreasonable and illogical for them to collapse just as she walked by. But at the back of her mind, she couldn't help thinking that the thousands of people above wouldn't even notice. All it would take was one small nudge in the geological scheme of things. A few buildings would subside, a few fire hydrants explode, and that would be it until somebody came down to the flight of stairs she had walked down hours before and said _hey -wasn't there a cave in here?_

It made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

She shook her head and focused on the map. Its plastic coating reflected her own worried eyes in the light of her torch. Easy enough. The plan showed another tunnel, no doubt with its own attendant monsters, and then a second large chamber. Maybe she'd call a break there, if this one didn't have a Creep nest in its centre. Maybe she'd feel easier in a larger space. Somewhere with proper walls.

She looked around at her team. Seifer was sitting hunched on a rock, wiping a cloth along Hyperion's blade although there was no dirt there that she could see. Selphie wandered around the cavern, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of her yellow sweater, singing snatches of a popular tune as she walked.

"_People ask me how I do it, and I say there's nothing to it_

_You just stand there looking cute…….and when something moves, you shoot…. _

_And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now….."_

_Two Galbadians-"_

Seifer looked up from his cleaning. "You're okay now?" There was something in the way the light of his torch caught his eyes and the way that he tilted his head that made a shiver go right down to Quistis's boots. He'd been stalking through the caves like claustrophobia was something that happened to other people, but now he looked uneasy.

Quistis cursed herself for being so obvious. "I'll be fine. Let's move out."

For once, Seifer didn't bother to question her. He replaced the cloth in the pocket of his jeans, stood up and looked suspiciously at Hyperion's blade, checking for nicks s if he'd been cleaning it with wire wool instead of cotton. "Where to, oh gracious leader?"

_Hyne, I must look worried_. Quistis thought.

She gestured to the corridor mouth. Selphie stopped singing and fell in behind them, spinning her nunchucks with a slow, steady hum.

The map measured the corridor as little more than two hundred metres, but it felt like two hundred miles by the time they all fell into the cavern Quistis had noticed. She had scars on her leather vest from where a mantis had gone for her heart, and Selphie was smoking slightly from one two many Fire spells after they'd encountered a herd of Bombs. Seifer, who'd backed her up, smelt strongly of burned hair.

"Wow."

"Holy _shit_."

Quistis looked around the cave.

It was enormous. Their state–of-the-art Estharian headlamps cast as much light as a single candle in the whole of Balamb.

Selphie rocked back on her heels, pointing the beam of her lamp straight up at the ceiling. There was a faint suggestion, right at the limit of the light, of a hacked-out cavern roof. She whistled and stretched, swinging her head round to illuminate the cave. The space was specked with pillars, rising up like the roots of skyscrapers into the dark roofspace. Water dripped somewhere in the distance.

A cool breeze hit the back of Quistis's neck, and she shivered. She moved to the left, treading softly on the gritty floor and trailing her fingertips over each pillar as she passed it, counting her footsteps. She paused after she'd passed five pillars, brushing dust that was probably older than she was from the palms of her hands.

_Ten metres between pillars. Five pillars, fifty metres at least, and I still can't see the end. Hyne, just how big is this place?_

A flicker of uncertainty edged her mind, and she ignored it, swivelling her neck to let the warm golden glow of the sodium lamp lick out over the floor. More pillars to her left, and to her right….holes too dark to be merely shadow. She adjusted her lamp so the beam illuminated the floor, took a few, much more careful steps over to her right and stood there, looking down for a while, before she called to the others.

"Over here."

Selphie joined her almost immediately, sallow underneath her borrowed lamp. White lime-dust streaked her bright clothing. "That's a _big_ hole."

"I'll say." Quistis said. She bent down, grasped a fist-sized pebble and tossed it over the lip of the pit. They both counted silently for a second before they heard the _thunk_ of the pebble hitting the ground. "Though not as deep as it looks."

"Deep enough. How're we going to get down _there_?"

"I think there's an exit on this level." Quistis said. "I'll have to check the maps." She readjusted her helmet and gazed at the floor seven metres below. It might have been a trick of the light, but the floor down below looked paler and smoother than the pebble she'd tossed. The pillars marched on into the darkness, unconcerned by the change in floor level. There was the suggestion of a wall there, right at the limit of her headlamp beam.

"What's with the pit?" Seifer joined them. "Shit. This place is massive."

"I don't think it's a pit." Quistis said. "I think that's the floor, down there."

Seifer looked puzzled. "This is the floor." He stamped on the compacted earth.

Quistis knelt down and let the fine pebbles run through her fingers. "It's packed gravel. They hacked the stone out and spread the waste on the floor when they couldn't dig any deeper."

Seifer had lost interest already, "Mine stuff." He wandered off to inspect one of the pillars, running a hand over the unmistakeable marks of an axe on the stone. "We don't have to go down there, do we? This job's fucking hard enough."

Quistis reached in the pocket of her suit for the map. "I don't think so."

Selphie looked at her with bright eyes. "Hyne, I hope not." She dangled her nunchucks from one hand, dragging the blunt tips of the weapon over the ground. "I guess those pillars would make good anchors for a rope, though."

Quistis gave the nearest pillar a doubtful glance. "Maybe." She didn't trust anything in the tunnels that she hadn't brought with her. She unfolded the map and hunkered down on the floor with her back against the pillar, listening to Selphie and Seifer wrangle.

"We better not miss the party."

"Selphie, the damn thing lasts for two days. We'll make it. And if we don't get out of here in two days, we won't be partying. We might not be breathing. So shut up about the fucking party, okay?"

Selphie didn't seem to be taking any notice. "How old d'you think this place is?"

"Gods know. Older than Esthar. Maybe older than the Centra civilisations. Older than Hyne. Who cares-"He broke off abruptly.

_That's odd. Nothing usually stops Seifer in the middle of a good taunting._

Quistis heard a muffled swearword (probably Seifer) and a sharp intake of breath (Selphie) and a strange noise like the ringing of a huge brass bell. She had already packed up the map and had her hand on Save the Queen by the time Seifer stuck his head around the nearest pillar.

"You should come see this." He sounded cautious, but not alarmed. Hyperion was slung over his back. Whatever it was, it wasn't worth fighting.

"What is it?"

"Hyne, just come see." He disappeared off into the cavern, though Quistis could see his headlamp and Selphie's light gleaming among the pillars. Gathering the supple leather lash of the whip in her hand, Quistis followed them. She leant her head up to stare at the nearly-out-of-sight ceiling and thought a_ hundred feet if it's an inch_.

What Seifer and Selphie had found was easily a fifth the height of the cavern. Quistis gazed up at it.

The statue stood mired knee-deep in the gravel floor. It was the shape of a huge beast, a cross between armoured cat and behemoth, with a rider seated on the shoulderblades of the animal. The rider's head was sunk on its chest, battered wings folded on his back like an outlandish coat. It held a massive sword, still edged, and as tall as Quistis. The sword looked like steel and consequently was the only part of the statue that wasn't streaked with green verdigris from the moisture in the caverns. The rest of the statue was in poor shape. Tiny mushrooms grew in the chinks of the rider's armour and the cracks of its mount's viciously flat face.

Selphie stood on tiptoe beneath the huge bronze belly. She jumped, trying to touch the bronze with the tip of her nunchucks, failed, and laughed. She'd be lucky not to knot Strange Vision around her skull, Quistis thought.

"What's a weapon doing down here?" she said, half to herself. The statue wasn't quite as large as either of the other weapons that she'd fought, and it wasn't moving, but the design was the same.

"It's _old_."

Quistis tilted her head back and half-turned. Seifer leant against the nearest pillar, arms crossed, regarding the weapon through sardonic half-closed eyes. He had turned his head lamp off. His eyes were dark in the dim light, the pupils dilated. "D' you think it's just a statue?"

Quistis shook her head. "It looks too much like Ultima Weapon. Maybe they based the weapons on this, some kind of ancient memory. Who knows? It looks like it's been down here for a while." She watched Selphie wander around the monster and envied the Trabian SeeD's uncomplicated mindset. The statue reminded her far too much of those two dreadful duels, running on Cure spells and phoenix pinions. Beside her, Seifer regarded it with curiosity.

"Did you see Omega in the castle?"

Seifer shook his head. "If I did, I don't remember."

"It's the mother of all monsters." Her finger teased out and replaited the tip of Save the Queen. "A nightmare."

"Sounds like fun."

Quistis shook her head. "It wasn't." she said adamantly, and moved closer to the statue. Close up, with Seifer standing beside it instead of Selphie, it didn't look quite so impressive, a foot or so smaller than Ultima Weapon. Even so, tall as he was, Seifer could only just have brushed the monster's metal belly with his fingertips. Quistis wouldn't have liked to fight it. She examined the metal, picking at the bronze with her fingernails. Green-grey flakes of verdigris fell off and she polished the metal beneath with her sleeve until it shone. "It's beautiful."

Seifer rapped his knuckles on the metal. It rang like a bell. "It's broken."

"Or dormant."

Seifer glanced up at the monster's lowering head. "Hope it's broken, then." He bent, picked up a rock, and tossed it at the creature's flank. Selphie crouched, covered her ears, and swore at him.

"We better get on."

"Yeah, so many monsters, so little time."

Quistis squinted at the statue's head. Was that a glint in the rider's eye? Or just red glass?

Selphie cocked her head on one side. "Hey, what's that noise?"

It was a grinding noise, like gravel over steel, like teeth gnashing. Or, Quistis thought, fatalistically, like bronze joints that hadn't moved in Hyne-knew-how-many years, smashing against each other.

Seifer, as usual, was the one who said what everybody else was thinking. "Oh, _fuck_."

Quistis ripped the whip from her belt. "If we get it when it's still stuck in the sand, we might stand a chance."

"Better move real _fast_, then." Seifer reached over his shoulder and yanked Hyperion from its sheath, bringing the sword into guard. Nearby, Selphie spun her nunchucks round in a holding pattern, _whum-whum-whum_, building up momentum.

Quistis let her whip trail along the floor, her lips dry with excitement, working her mind back into the warrior-mindset. Her field of vision expanded; aware of everything, focused on nothing. She could feel the cool breeze on her skin, hear the faint dripping of water, but they had become nothing else than distractions. The golden circle of Selphie's headlamp shone to her left. Seifer's appeared to her right as he switched the torch back on.

The monster didn't appear to have noticed them. The wings on the rider's back flapped once and extended slowly from its upright body. The mount raised each paw in turn, flicking them free of gravel with a cat's fastidiousness.

Quistis snapped her open palm out in the SeeD-sign for _straight ahead_ and broke into a run, keeping the pace measured to allow Selphie to catch up. When she could see a flash of yellow to her left she held one finger out to Seifer for _point_, flicked her palm horizontally at Selphie for _cover, _and then they were onto the beast.

The monster saw them and snarled. Metal plates slid smoothly over each other as its face twisted, revealing foot-long fangs of sharpened steel that looked like kitchen knives. The rider swivelled its head and attempted to bring the huge sword round to bear, but the monster it rode was still mired in the sand, too close to the wall, and it didn't have room.

Quistis thanked Hyne for the small mercy. She cast and blue light blinded her for a second before the Protect shield fell into position and her irises adapted back to the dim light. Selphie copied her. Seifer had already closed on the monster heedless of protection, trusting her to play the mage. Her second spell swirled around him, and Hyperion cut a sparkler-flare of cinders through the magic before it set.

Quistis checked her pockets for healing items and summoned Shiva.

The GF came swiftly to her hands as always. It had been years since Quistis had needed to take LuvLuv Gs. Seifer must have seen the spray of blue sparks cascading from her hands because he retreated quickly, leaving her room to cast.

Quistis did.

The gravel at her feet frosted over, and a sudden icy breeze whipped her hair loose from its tail. She took a ragged breath from lungs seared with cold and the world blurred around her.

It took maybe ten seconds until she was staggering in the cavern as Shiva settled back into her skull with a soft whisper like the sound of petals falling in the snow. The cool air of the caves seemed unbearably hot,

The weapon snarled and shook its heavy head. It seemed confused and Quistis once again thanked Hyne that this weapon was smaller than either Omega or Ultima. She cast again (Blizzara this time, an offering for Shiva, her snow goddess) and wished for more GFs. Garden had a limited number, and they had been divided up between parties. Irvine had Siren; the Silence GF was a sucker for the cowboy's lazy smile and they suited well. She would have bet money that Squall had Ifrit. Zell surely had Quetzalcoatl. She thought Selphie had one, but not which. Leviathan maybe? Cactuar?

She summoned and cast again.

This time when she emerged from the GF-induced trance with the taste of snowflakes on her tongue, she could have sworn that the monster looked a fraction weaker. One wing dragged, the vane half-severed, and two of the monster's incisors were snapped back at the roots. Seifer dodged sword blade and spinning claws, aiming to get in beneath the vulnerable underbelly. Selphie was a blur in the air in front of the monster's teeth, using every ounce of her agility to keep out of the way of its fangs.

The monster swiped at Quistis with a clawed metal paw, and she leapt back.

Selphie signed _Summoning _and dodged away.

Quistis moved into the fray. She used the handle of the whip to deflect a slash of the giant blade that would have cut her in two, felt the shock reverberate up the weapon, and cursed. Hyne, the thing was strong. She took up Selphie's position and cast a Fira in the monster's face. It backed away, allowing Seifer to land a good blow in one of its lobstered steel joints. It didn't make much of an impression. Sweat beaded his forehead as he hacked doggedly at the armour.

Selphie tucked her nunchucks under her armpit and pulled a translucent green pill from her pocket. She checked it under the light and swallowed it.

A merry _cheep_ drifted from the back of the cave.

The monster's teeth snapped at Save The Queen's lash, and Quistis staggered. The leather thong of the whip cut through her hands, but she hung on, damned if she was going to let the monster take her only weapon away. The rider of what she was beginning to think of as Alpha Weapon reversed its sword and stabbed at her, perilously close to its mount's neck. Quistis dodged and the point thudded into the gravel. She twisted at the whip and heard a clanking noise as the chain links slipped through the monster's teeth. She pulled again with greater strength, and the whip suddenly gave way.

Quistis weighed whether to put her arm out to break her fall or cast and opted for casting. A Blizzaga in the face made the rider think twice and frosted the blade of the sword. The mount, perhaps sensing its master's discomfiture, snarled and lunged and Quistis thrust a hand in its face as if she thought it would protect her.

Seifer shoved her away and the monster got a blade in its face for its trouble instead of a SeeD. He yelled "Yeah, Selphie, that'll be _real_ useful." and used Hyperion as a lever to rip a metal plate from the monster's face.

Quistis heard a second cheep, saw a flash of yellow feathers from the corner of her eye, lunged forwards and pushed Seifer to the ground with all the strength she could muster. He landed heavily, Hyperion three inches from his hand, and dived for the sword. Quistis screamed "_Get Down!"_ at the top of her voice and a torrent of elemental fire passed a finger's height over the crown of Seifer's head.

"Chocofuego." Selphie yelled from behind them both. "Gysahl Greens."

Seifer gave her the finger, grabbed for the sword-hilt, twisted to avoid a fang and erupted from the gravel with perfect balance. He reversed Hyperion for close quarters, spinning the gunblade around with a grace that Quistis couldn't help but envy. The move surprised the monster, and he dodged in under its legs, sheltered by the foursquare roof of its belly. Quistis heard a hoarse "Firaga" and cherry-red flames erupted from the belly of the beast. She cast.

A Blizzaga on top of that made the tortured metal scream as Quistis wondered just how much magic they all had left. None of them had bargained for such a deadly opponent, and Seifer carried mainly fire variants out of choice. She lashed the monster across its narrow red eyes, ducked as a Waterga from Selphie roared over her head and drew from the weapon. Spray fell gently on her face.

Drawing, as she'd told Seifer once, was an intensely personal experience. She tasted copper on her tongue, smelt hot metal, and fished. She'd expected a few Fire spells, maybe a Flare or two, but what she found was like going angling in your friendly neighbourhood pond and pulling out a killer whale.

_I should have expected it. It's a weapon. I should have known…_

"Seifer! Selphie!" She screamed, not waiting for a reply. "Shell or shield! It's got Meteor!"

She saw Selphie toss a stone in the air. A familiar orange glow enveloped her, blanking out as Selphie pulled out another stone and tossed it in her direction. The spell had just sectioned into fragments like the quarters of a satsuma when the monster cast.

The world turned to fire.

Selphie's Shell kicked in just as the meteor hit, but a couple got through, gouging a self-cauterising gash in Quistis's cheek and peppering her jacket with tiny cinder-holes. She staggered as the rocks crashed down, covering her face reflexively as boulders the size of her head bounced from the shield. The barrage didn't last for more than thirty seconds, but it felt like forever.

The onslaught left her on her knees, her face stinging with what felt like sunburn. Fighting reflex dragged her to her feet and sheer terror had her desperately searching for Seifer among the rubble that littered the floor, making their job that much harder. The monster snarled, right in her face, and Quistis turned on it with a rage she hadn't known she possessed.

_Thought that was smart? Try it yourself. _

This time the draw was easy, the monster's magic store depleted by its attack. She yanked the spell right out of its head and threw it back at the weapon, smiling humourlessly with her lips draw back as the meteors crashed down. The beast whined pitifully and its rider raised its sword above its head as if that would protect it. Selphie danced under its guard, raining rained nunchaku blows on its head and neck. They knocked out a few more teeth and shattered the glass in one eye.

"You okay?"

Quistis half-turned and smiled as Seifer walked out from behind a boulder. "Knew you'd be fine."

"Yeah? Well, me too." He grinned, teeth bright in a grimy soot-stained face. Quistis cast a Curaga. He waved a hand in thanks as if he'd never been in pain at all and jumped into the fight at Selphie's side. The meteor shower finished and Quistis called Shiva. She felt as if all her veins had turned to ice in an instant, crystals ripping their way from her fingernails and forming in her hair. Shiva sang to her and Quistis flicked one hand round to point the GF at her prey.

That was the easy part.

The _hard_ part, Quistis thought twenty minutes later, was doing it again and again, planning every move out with sweat stinging her eyes and hoping that they wouldn't need them, that the monster would collapse before they got that far.

It didn't.

"Haven't you guys figured out that suicide runs like this don't work?" Seifer panted.

"All the people who learned that were killed in suicide missions." Quistis tossed back. A thread of panic shrilled in her mind, a forgotten footnote from a mission.

_If the question ever arises in your mind 'Should we abort?' the answer is YES! While you still can._

_Too late now. _she thought. _It'll hunt us through the caves-_

"You don't want us to save the last strike for you?" Selphie asked innocently.

"Damn it, Selphie." Seifer snapped. "Cover me."

He dodged a boulder and ran out, trying to dive under the monster's guard and get beneath its belly again.

When he was halfway there the monster bent its head down and caught the blade of Hyperion between its teeth. Seifer pulled at the blade, trying to wrench it away (the alternative was let it go and leave it be and she knew Seifer would never do that) and the monster casually swiped at him with one paw. It didn't put much effort into it, but Seifer slammed into one of the stony pillars that held the roof up, and didn't move. The monster spat the gunblade out, heedless of any damage done to lips or teeth. It snarled through a mask of oily blood and pawed the sword a few times. When the blade didn't move it snarled again and moved around a boulder, head bobbing, hunting.

Quistis swore under her breath. She hurdled a meteor, casting as she dived towards the monster, and came up near its muscled metal haunches. Without stopping to think about anything, she reached out and placed her right hand squarely on the cool moisture-beaded metal.

"Blizzaga."

Frost gathered around her hand and spread faster than a thought across the monster's metal surface. Quistis's instinctive reaction was to jerk her hand away from the freezing metal. She clamped her left hand round her wrist and slammed her palm back down onto the monster's metal armour, pouring magic into the weapon as fast as she could handle.

The monster snarled.

OOO

Selphie watched the weapon duck its head, searching for Seifer among the meteor rubble, and cursed under her breath. She cracked the monster hard across its armoured side and dodged a slash from its rider's sword that seemed more irritated than furious. Its mount continued to sniff the ground so Selphie dived for Seifer, instinctively trying to put herself between him and the monster. She landed full-length in the sand under the monster's teeth.

Several things happened very fast.

Selphie struck out with her nunchucks. She managed a good solid blow before the monster threw its head up and snarled wordless defiance. Ice beaded on the monster's head, glazing its eyes, and the saliva that flew from its mouth stung like tiny icicles.

Seifer crawled out from behind a boulder on hands and knees, his head hanging. A fiery globe burned in one hand. He hurled it at the monster, which reared up with a sound that made the earth shake. It snarled, hesitated- and collapsed with a shudder. Its tail rolled out like a piece of wire as it fell. The tip of the tail caught Quistis mid-chest. She disappeared into the darkness without a sound.

Selphie rolled into a fetal position with her arms over her head as pieces of metal armour rained down. She thought they had finished, but then the monster cast Meteor and the world rained into blackness.

OOO

"Unhhhhhh…Fuck."

Seifer cautiously opened his eyes.

It was a few seconds before the headache cleared enough for Seifer to realise that he couldn't see anything. He touched his face, cautiously. One side of his face itched with tiny burn-blisters that burst as he touched them and wept a clear fluid

Eyes open.

Eyes closed.

No difference.

He sighed and rolled over. He still couldn't see anything, but at least he was beginning to have a good idea why. And it wasn't an answer he particularly liked. The simple reason why he couldn't see was because there was no light. Because he was thousands of feet below ground in some fucking abandoned mine.

He reached out, hands skating over grit and chunks of crumbling rock until they touched the canvas strap of his helmet. He hooked one finger around it, fumbling for a switch, and clicked it on. The beam glinted from fallen pieces of armour and pale broken rocks. A fat drop of water splashed on his head and he recoiled fast, scraping a hand against rock and swearing as nothing more menacing materialised. A quick mental check of his magic inventory told him that he had nowhere near enough spells left to light his way back to the entrance.

_Shit._

There was a tiny scraping noise from somewhere in front of him. Seifer froze. Edea had told them all lots of stories about things that lived underground and more gruesome variants of the tales had been favourites to swap between their bunks in the dorms at night. Seifer had long ago come to the conclusion that the ones about ghosts and demons probably weren't true. The ones about monsters certainly were.

The scraping noise repeated, yards in front of him. Seifer rolled over into a sitting position and called up a Firaga spell.

"Selphie? _Quistis_?"

There was no answer for a terrible second, and then a weak cry. "Seifer." He fought down a pang of disappointment as he recognised Selphie's voice and pretended he hadn't been relieved. The last seconds of the fight were mostly a blur. The last thing he remembered was casting a Firaga at the weapon. Apart from that, not much.

He crawled over pieces of rubble to where he thought the monster had been standing and found Hyperion under a pile of mildewed armour.

Selphie was crouched against a pile of armour nearby, her knees clutched close to her chest. She looked tiny in the vast cave. Her short hair pulled from its ponytail and fanned out along her jaw.

"You okay?"

Seifer nodded with her eyes closed. A few tears leaked out from under her lids. Seifer put them down to the aftermath of a hard battle. He handed her an X-potion and she popped the top and swallowed it down like it was water. She didn't even cough, though she wiped her mouth with a lost look in her eyes.

"Where's Quistis?"

Selphie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She opened her eyes and looked at him from behind her tangled hair. There was a desolate expression on her face. "She's gone."

"What do you mean, gone?"

Selphie felt for a handhold on the boulder and pulled herself up, leaning on her doubled over nunchucks. Seifer offered a hand and was rewarded by a look of venomous ingratitude he didn't wholly understand.

"I could have gone for her or you. And you were closer." she whispered, and Seifer understood.

"She's _dead_?"

"I don't know." Selphie snapped. "How much do you remember of the last few minutes?" She pointed with a grubby finger at one of the pits. "She went down there."

Seifer scratched at his scar. The cold cave air was making it ache, and being stressed out as all fuck wasn't helping. "Then she should still be there."

_Or her body._

Like most SeeD theories, it sounded easy.

It wasn't.

They used the search pattern they had both been taught in their respective Gardens, although Seifer betted that Selphie had paid more attention to it over in Trabia than he had in Balamb. Ever-widening circles, start small, move out. But the rubble on the floor made even that simple concept impossible, though, and the pits were big. The different between two flashlights and three was nakedly obvious; the available light had become even dimmer with Quistis gone_. Symbolic_, Seifer thought bleakly. _As well as damn impractical._

They checked all the tunnels radiating out from the central cavern, rechecking the ones that Selphie was sure they had missed, and Seifer was equally sure they'd checked. They even made a rope from Quistis' pack and Selphie the lightest slid down it and stood calling out, the light of her Fira spell rarely visible

She wasn't there.

It took a clear hour of searching before they called a mutual halt. An hour of turning over every boulder with grazed hands, an hour of not talking except curt phrases of _did you look down there_ and _have you checked here_, of sliding down ropes and shining lights into the darkness, hoping to se her.

"She can't just have _vanished_."

"Then where the hell has she gone?" Seifer snapped. "You should have rescued _her. _Not me"It wasn't fair, but he just wanted to lash out, and Selphie, Hyne help her, was nearest.

"I didn't." Selphie's tears cut tracks in her dirty face.

"Don't expect me to be grateful."

"I didn't. And don't you talk to me like that."

"I'll talk how I want."

"Look, Seifer. I had a decision to make. I made it, and because of that you're still alive, you ungrateful..jackass! If I'd had time to think about then yes, I might have chosen differently. But I didn't. And……and you're here." Seifer heard the unspoken _wish you weren't_ that Selphie didn't say. "And Quistis is…lost (dead, the shadows whispered.) And that's just …how it is, I guess."

There was a long silence, broken only by Selphie's sniffles and Seifer swearing as he turned and kicked a chunk of rubble just as hard as he could. It didn't bring Quistis back, but it gave him a pain in his foot to take his mind from the hollow pit of emptiness in his gut, and that was what he'd wanted.

He looked sidelong at Selphie, and sighed. Time to get back to basics. Quistis was here, and he would find her.

Selphie wiped her face and pushed off from the cave wall. "I'm sorry." She said, and her voice was steady for the first time since Seifer had found her in the cave. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Yeah, well. I think we both said some things." Seifer said, and Selphie nodded like she understood that that was as close to an apology as she was ever going to get.

We have to get help. The rescue beacon won't find us in here. We have to get out and activate it. Do you have it?"

Selphie dug in the pocket of her sweater. Blue glass glinted in her headlight's beam. "I do."

"Which way?"

"Damn." Selphie whispered. Her face was naked and exhausted. She stopped in mid-sentence to rub a grimy hand across her face. Seifer swallowed, tasted grit, and realised that he must look nearly as bad. "The maps. Quistis had the maps."

"Has. Which way do we go? Do you know?"

Selphie screwed up her face and pointed to the left. "That way."

"Then let's go." Seifer said. His boot kicked something sharp and shiny in the darkness. "Wait one minute."

He picked up the monster tooth and scratched at the wall with its point, daring Selphie her to say something. Two lines, bisecting, and a rough triangle, pointing down the corridor, fire cross.

"What's that?" Selphie asked in a smoke-roughened voice.

Seifer shrugged, rolling his shoulders, and said "She might find her way out."

"So we're leaving signs for the girl with the maps?"

"Well, then she can come save us, okay? We're done. Let's go."

It was a good four hours later when they finally admitted they might have made a mistake.

Seifer had always reckoned himself good at finding his way. He'd had to be, out in northern Trabia, navigating by the sun and the stars, by landmarks and tree moss and blind luck. He found cities, with their streetnames and maps, much easier. Caves, he was beginning to realise, were much more difficult. One blank white wall looked pretty much like another in the dark.

He made a rough guess by identifying the species of each monster they hacked through- Imps seemed to like it near the surface, Creeps nested deeper down for moisture- but as a method of navigation monster-slaying had its disadvantages Seifer was no haruspex, but he could read his own future in the entrails of the monsters. They were prophesying a quick and brutal death.

They rested up in a small chamber dug from the main tunnel when the running-on-empty feeling became intolerable. Selphie took energy bars from the capacious pockets of her sweater and stacked them up, reckoning their supplies. They both stared at the small pile.

"Is that it?" Selphie said despondently. "I thought I packed more."

_That's the good thing about Quistis dying-at least we've got more food_ Seifer thought. He said "Don't worry about it."

Selphie glanced at him doubtfully.

"Monsters'll get us first."

They rationed the bars out and chewed slowly. When they'd finished Seifer scooped out a tiny hole in the centre of the chamber and set his water bottle in it, piling thin gravel and stones up to half its height to fix it in place. He leant back against the cold crumbling wall and tossed stones at the makeshift target, eyes narrowed. They missed, badly.

Selphie scrabbled in the dirt behind her for ammunition. She flicked her wrist, once, gauging the distance. Her first stone blasted Seifer's bottle out of the hole and on its side.

Seifer thought, not for the first time, that she was good in the dark, her pupils dilated until the irises barely showed. Used to night-time manoeuvres with the cowboy, no doubt.

"Bet you can't repeat that."

Selphie's second stone flicked the canteen high in the air and her third made a neat dent in the side in mid-air. Seifer heard it crash to the ground in the shadows three metres away. There was a scream and something scurried off into the darkness.

Selphie flipped a stone up and caught it on the back of her hand. "Isn't there anything harmless in this place?"

"If there ever was, the monsters probably ate it." Seifer leaned back and lit a cigarette, making his own small light in the darkness. He tried to forget how he'd felt for those few seconds in the dark, lost and alone and praying to a god he didn't believe in.

"The monsters'll have more to worry about than her." Selphie said, but her voice was uncertain and thin. She didn't believe it any more than Seifer did, and she was scared.

"Sure. Trust me." Seifer said. Whatever Selphie's mouth said, her eyes said _you do realise that if we ever find Quistis again, she'll be in pieces. "_See if you can sleep for a while. I'll keep watch."

"I can't." Selphie ran a hand down her arm, flaking off dried blood and silvery patches of ichor. "Yuk."

"You can. Like I said, trust me." Seifer told her. He sat in the dirty gravel and watched Selphie fall asleep within three minutes, collapsing in the absolute mental and physical exhaustion that followed intense exertion.

S_hit, you really do sleep faster than anyone I've ever seen._

Later he would find that ironic, but here and now it was just a thought.

That was the first day.

The second day:

"I'm out of support magic." Seifer said, and swore. He followed the first curseword with several more in a variety of languages that would have had Edea threatening to wash his mouth out with soap if she'd heard him. Luckily for him, Selphie wasn't so picky.

"What do you mean, out of magic?"

"Yeah, well. You know." Seifer scratched at his scar. "No Protects. No Shells, either."

"Didn't they teach you about balanced junctioning at Balamb?"

"They tried." Seifer growled. It had been a long morning. First there had been a pack of Imps, and then there had been a Grand Mantis, and then there had been more white corridors than he cared to remember. "I like Fire variants."

Selphie brushed her hand over the stone walls. "Not everything has to be lethal, you know." She squinted, and then pointed. "Hang on…?"

"What?"

"Is it lighter over there, or is it just me?"

Seifer turned his headlight off. The tunnel they were in ended in a sharp right-angle. This wasn't unusual; many of the tunnels twisted erratically. What was unusual was that he could see it with his light turned off. Selphie switched her light off too and they stood for a second gazing at the pale grey light like it was the best thing ever.

Seifer fought down a sense of rising excitement. "That's it. We must be nearly out."

"We did it! We're good! Tell me we're good!" Selphie said. She jumped up and down, nearly touching the low roof with each spring.

Seifer grinned. "We're fucking _brilliant_."

The next cavern was almost as large as the one in which they'd found the weapon. A pale light shone down from a pothole in the ceiling, nowhere near desert-bright after its journey through who-knew how many feet of rock. The cave was evening-murky, but that looked good as a summer's day as far as Seifer was concerned. He could see a tunnel right in the far corner of the cave, and would have bet everything he owned that the desert was right around the corner. That wasn't much, but you had to work with what you had.

"Nearly there." Selphie said brightly. And then her knees went from under her and she folded up on the floor in a neat little bundle.

Seifer was to far away to catch her, but he made it to her side within seconds, praying that she hadn't damaged anything important. Of course, he reckoned Selphie had been dropped on her head one too many times as a child. She'd probably had practice, but that didn't stop him from being worried.

"Selph?"

He rocked back on his heels and shoved one hand under Selphie's jawbone to check for a pulse. It was present and, as far as Seifer could tell, seemed normal. Blood ran sluggishly down the side of her face, black in the dim light. Seifer guessed she had cracked her head on a stone. "Oh, _hell_. Irvine's going to kill me." He listened to her soft, regular breathing, touched her shoulder. "Selphie? Wake the fuck up."

"She's just asleep." somebody said, from the corner of the cavern. It sounded older, male, and it certainly wasn't Quistis.

_Sleep. Yeah. That would do it._

Seifer summoned a fire spell.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you." the voice said.

"Why the hell not?" Seifer snarled, and threw it.

Two seconds later he knew exactly why not, but it was too late to do anything by then. The spell ricocheted from the Reflect shield the stranger had thrown up and rebounded on Seifer. He managed to dive in front of Selphie and duck in time, but the spell still ignited the sleeve of his sweater, and Seifer had to duck and roll to put it out. He wound up in a cloud of scorched wool and blue smoke, hand still on his sword, using words that Edea probably didn't even know were swearwords.

Headlights flicked on, and the entire cave dissolved into a haze of _ow_ and _fuck_ and _Hyne, my eyes. _Seifer touched Hyperion and brought it up in his right hand, dusting charred remnants of sweater away with his left.

"Hands up! Now! Or I shoot." somebody shouted.

Seifer pointed the gunblade in the general direction of the light. "I could say the same to you, asshole."

There was the crawling feeling of a Scan creeping over his body, calling his bluff. Seifer said a word that even Selphie would have been surprised to hear he knew.

"It's not loaded." somebody called out.

Seifer cursed Squall and his whole can't-shoot-in-the-caves-spiel. It figured. The one time he ended up listening to Leonhart, and look what happened? "Shit."

"Look, be smart and don't try any more magic. You know it won't work."

Seifer could have told them that any strategy that hinged on his intelligence and sense of self-preservation was doomed from the start. He squinted. Around the bright lights, he could just make out the outline of a few dark-clad figures. _Five_, he thought, and then changed his estimate to _four_ as his eyes adjusted.

"Your eardrums'll burst if you fire that gun in here." he shouted.

One of the party pointed at the sinkhole in the ceiling. The gun did not waver. "Probably not. Besides, we've got a Guardian Force. And rest assured, we will use it."

Seifer snorted. "Nice try. Everyone knows Balamb's the only place crazy enough to plug that shit into their heads." He was playing for time, and losing.

The lights dimmed and adjusted. "Who said anything about putting anything into anyone's heads?"

There were four of them, three guys and a girl. Two of the party had rifles, and the third carried a chunk of concrete topped with black-and-white tiling in his hands. "We found stone from the Sorceresses' castle in the desert." one called. "And in it we found this."

Seifer would have called them liars, but he knew that GFs had a nasty habit of appearing right where you did not need them, a payback from all the times they were summoned against their own will. Besides, the man passed his hands over it and a blue and black scaled monster rose shivering into the air. It flexed its claws and made a nasty little noise.

_Tiamat. Fuck. _Seifer thought. He wasn't sure that he would even survive the GF's attack without protective magic. It would certainly leave him in no condition to fight back, and that had never been part of any plan of Seifer's. "Where'd you get _that_ thing?"

"Shut up." one of the figures rapped out. "Drop the weapon, and back away from the girl. Slowly."

Seifer lowered Hyperion to the floor. He laid the gunblade carefully on the ground and shoved it out of arm's reach with the tip of his fingers. "You take care of that."

"I'd worry less about your sword and more about yourself if I was you. Walk over there. Now kneel down. And put your hands on your head. No sudden movements."

Seifer did as he said, watching the strange party as he did so. They all wore black, with no visible insignia that he could see. That could have meant anything, but the phrases and the Guardian Force told him _SeeD_. "What's this about?"

"Odine wants you dead."

Seifer couldn't think of anything smart to say to that, so he just said "Odine?"

A couple of black-clad figures peeled off from the group and came towards him. They wore knitted hats pulled down over their forehead, as if in disguise, but even with the beanies Seifer could tell that they were in the right age bracket for SeeDs. One of them picked up Hyperion and the second ripped the torch from Seifer's head.

"The scientist? He hired us. And he wants you to know that it was him." There was a very slight accent to the words.

Galbadian, Seifer thought. His track record with Galbadia Garden was abysmal, but they were SeeDs. Maybe he could work with that. He forced a laugh. "Bastard hasn't got the guts to pull the trigger himself?"

The oldest SeeD looked uneasy and shrugged. The second SeeD, the one with his gunblade, weighted the blade and took an experimental swing.

"Hey." Seifer said irritably. "I thought I told you to be careful with that."

The metal rim of a gun bounced off his skull. "Shut up."

The ex-knight ignored him. He risked a glance at Selphie and hoped she was still breathing. There was no reason why she shouldn't be, but the way she was lying so still worried him. "Have you guys seen anyone else? Another SeeD? About five foot six, five seven? Blonde? Goes by the name of Quistis Trepe? You must've heard of her."

He heard the movement a second before a fist smashed into his jaw. It was hard enough to bruise but not hard enough to break bones, and Seifer took that as a good sign. If they were worried about hurting him, there was a good chance he was going to get out of this alive.

Maybe.

He didn't expect the sound of another blow, behind him. "Idiot. Why'd you have to go and do that?"

Seifer risked a glance. The older SeeD had his colleague by the shoulder of his jacket and was speaking in a low fierce voice to him, pausing now and then to gesture to Seifer. It would have been a perfect distraction if the remaining two SeeDs hadn't been levelling one gun and a GF at his face.

The older SeD finished chastising his collage and came round to stand in front of Seifer. He had Hyperion in one gloved hand, and the sight of the sleek gunblade in an enemy's hand hurt Seifer worse that his colleague's punch had. "I'm sorry. We're professionals, all right? We don't do things like that. And I'm sorry about your friend. If she's gone missing, she's probably dead by now."

"Besides, contract orders." the SeeD with Tiamat broke in.

"Fuck the contract." Seifer said. "They're SeeDs."

"No witnesses, Odine said. Half a million gil."

"She's not a witness! She's not even here!"

"Shut up. Look, pat him down, do it, and then let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

One of the soldiers tucked his pistol in the back of his trousers and walked forwards. The one junctioning the GF moved forwards, too. They seemed to be trusting the GF more than the guns. Seifer had been banking on it.

The older SeeD shrugged, as if to say _nothing persona_l. "Search him for weapons. Take any that you find. And then shoot him."

They were fast and efficient, removing the few items he had saved in his pockets as well as the knife tucked in Seifer's combats and the backup knife tucked in a pocket if the sleeve of his sweater. The ex-knight was aware that he was running out of options fast.

He heard a hiss of snaky laughter and focused on the SeeD holding the lump of concrete nervously in his hands. No wonder the Galbadians hadn't wanted to stick Tiamat directly in their heads, from what Seifer had seen in Ultimecia's castle. Like Bahamut, with none of the charm. Not exactly plug-and-play, and Seifer was well aware of that. Fuck, he'd seen what they could do, even junctioned a couple, but he'd never really felt comfortable with them.

Junctioning raw GFs was a dangerous game, like playing Russian roulette with six chambers and five bullets. They had to like you. If he was really lucky, it'd let him draw it. If he was even luckier, he wouldn't have to try.

The Galbadian SeeD searching him laid blunt fingers to Seifer's wrist and drew the remainder of his Fire magic. He searched for other options and came up with nothing.

Something laughed. There was a rattle of scales in the back of his mind.

Seifer had watched the SeeDs rip Alexander out of Edea's head without touching her in the Galbadia Garden auditorium two years ago, drawing the GF just like magic. It was worth a try.

He concentrated.

The voice in his head sounded like mailed gauntlets crunching bones to powder. _Why should I?_

_That guy you're junctioned to right now? _Seifer thought. _I'm going to kill him. Besides, it's got to be better than being stuck in a brick the rest of your life._

He heard a second hissy lizard laugh.

_Very well._

The GF crashed into him like a huricane wave. Later, Seifer would try to explain just how it felt in normal terms, but the truth was that it felt just like having a thousand-year old dragon shoehorned into his skull. It felt like shooting up honey laced with tar.

The Galbadian gasped, automatically reaching for his junction and realising that he didn't have it, and Seifer launched the GF back.

Tiamat snarled.

Seifer felt claws and wings and the weight of scales. He threw one arm in front of his eyes, thinking _too slow, too fucking slow _as the world blurred into huge batlike wings, a scaled tail and flashes of bone-white fang. His blood was fire.

Tiamat burst from his hands like a hurricane.

It still wasn't fast enough.

One of the SeeD's guns fired, the report deafening in the enclosed space. To Seifer, it felt like somebody had punched him in the chest, shoving him back against the rocky floor.

There was a scream that nobody heard, like the cry of a hawk stooping on its prey magnified a thousand times. The GF blasted the Galbadian who had fired the rifle into bloody shreds and looked around for fresh prey.

Seifer wasn't surprised as much as pissed off. If you lived by the sword, sooner or later you would die by it, and Seifer had killed enough people to know that this was the real world. Shit happened. And it normally happened to him.

That wasn't much of a consolation.

It felt as if somebody had reached inside his chest, deposited a white-hot coal somewhere in the right side of his ribcage and yanked their hand right out again, not caring about any muscle or bone or otherwise vital structures that got in their way

It was getting difficult to breathe.

Seifer spat blood, long strands of it drying in the dust on the floor. His chest ached with a terrible, raw, hitching pain. The floor looked like a butcher's shop. He wasn't sure how much of it was his and how much was the bloody remnants of the Galbadian.

_I never did kill him,_ he thought. _Do GFs count?_

He tried to move and the hot coal in his chest liquefied and spread, a screaming white sheet of pain that originated in his left chest and radiated out to cover his whole body. Seifer heard somebody moaning, realised it was himself and bit his lip so hard to shut himself up that his teeth went right through the skin.

Something was preying on his mind.

_Get up!_

The words were knife-edged. They hurt almost as much as the wound in his chest, so much he lurched up and fell back, choking, from the hot-metal taste in his mouth and coughing up warm sticky clots. Not metal, he'd tasted blood before.

_Fight, damn you!_

Tiamat reached out from his brain, stinging muscles and tendons into action. Seifer moved instinctively and collapsed again as the white-hot pain in his chest worsened and then began to fade. He was conscious enough to both welcome the cessation of the pain and dread it.

Nothing's rush for life was going to save him now. Blood spattered from his mouth with every breath he exhaled. Lights swam in his vision and he closed his eyes, feeling some small comfort in the dark.

Somebody kicked him in the back. People were shouting to each other, the voices tinged with a harsh Galbadian accent that reminded him of his mother, only Elli Almasy had never said anything like that in her life. They were dim, but distinct.

"He's still alive." somebody said.

"No he's not. He's just taking his time to die."

Seifer didn't have breath enough to tell him that he was probably right and then there was nothing but whiteness and pain. Something screamed in the back of his head and Seifer followed it down into the light.

OOO

Author's Note:

…….Because everybody knows that I can't finish a story without killing off one/both of my two main characters. Caves courtesy of Beer limestone mines on the south coast of England. http/www.beerquarrycaves. pretty much as close as you'll get to typical ff8 monster-killing scenery. Extra caviness due to the Cumberland Cavern/Wapping Mine complex in Matlock, Derbyshire, UK. Selphie's song is The Hunting Song by Tom Lehrer.

More suggestions for music for this chapter include 'A Boy And His Machinegun' by the Matthew Good Band, because I am running out of story.

Reviews:

Asga: I never was 100 happy with the whole Seifer/Quistis thing. I don't think I wrote it as convincingly as I could have, maybe because the more I think about it the more I tell myself 'no, this really would not work.' But hey.

DragonPrincess Isis: thanks

Ghost 140: thanks

Iudex Acerbus: What's your name from? It's kind of unusual.

Jack Hanek: Working on original next. I'll miss Seifer and Quistis, and maybe I'll have to do a few drabbles to keep my hand in here and there.

Seventhe: There's a little more to the knight thing (se next chapter) but I just thought it made sense. I really couldn't be bothered to trawl 400+ pages of script, so I'm pleased nobody's come up with a reason why Odine couldn't be her knight.

Sulou: I hope the fighting lived up to your expectations…..

Superviolist: Selphie, like Laguna and maybe Squall, was one of my 'meh' characters that kind of morphed.

Verdannii: glad you liked it.

Zoro: well, we try. Next chapter might not be up for a while due to new house and job.

Kate

(the man in black fled across the desert,and the gunslinger followed)


	19. Chapter Eighteen: Courting Disaster

Recovering The Satellites:

So if you call, I will answer.

And if you fall, I'll pick you up.

And if you court this disaster

I'll point you home,

I'll point you home.

James-Call and Answer.

Chapter 18- Courting Disaster.

The noise of the shot echoed through the mine.

The few surviving monsters left in the tunnels paused in their feeding, shreds of their packmates' flesh dangling from frantically-chewing jaws. Chips of limestone rattled on the floor of long worked-out levels, minor rockslides closed off a few of the older tunnels and the Funguar Quistis was duelling paused for one fatal second.

Quistis looped the shank of Save The Queen around its soft stem, braced her forearms against the whip and pulled with all her strength. The chain sank deeply into the monster's spongy flesh. Orange ichor oozed from the wound and covered the metal. She yanked on the leather-covered handle and split the Funguar efficiently down the centre. The monster went limp.

Quistis dragged Save The Queen from the corpse, flicking candy-coloured monster blood from the chain links as they rattled along the floor. She wiped her greasy hands down her trouser seams and pulled the SeeD map from her pocket.

According to the map, she was only a few hundred metres from the cave exit. The information did not reassure her. Quistis had learned long ago that accidents tended to occur on the home straight on missions; because everybody was relaxed enough to make mistakes. The gunshot only enhanced her sense of healthy paranoia.

Quistis stirred the monster's body with the toe of her boot, found nothing, and moved on.

She had long since stopped worrying about exterminating all the monsters in the mine and started worrying that one might exterminate her before she managed to escape and find help. Her hands were patchworked with grazes; her clothes smeared with limestone dust and monster blood in all the colours of the rainbow. Underneath her leather vest, Seifer's necklace had been eviscerated of all its stones, one after another refined for cheapjack magic and the small spells that could keep her fighting.

She had no idea how long she had been in the caves.

Long enough to be hungry and tired, she thought, but not long enough to be forced into sleep. It had taken her an hour to locate her position on the map after waking up on the cave floor with most of her healing items smashed and Creep feelers a bare inch from her face. She had seen no sign of Selphie or Seifer since, although she'd made out a fire cross scratched shallowly into the cave wall, pointing the wrong way. That had worried her, but it hadn't worried her half as much as the noise of the shot did. Neither Seifer nor Selphie had any bullets, and they hadn't been expecting any more SeeDs.

She advanced cautiously down the passage, her whip heavy at her hip.

The first thing she saw was Selphie.

The Trabian SeeD lay sprawled at the cavern entrance. Strange Vision curled beside her on the floor, lacquered handles an inch from her outflung hand. There was white dust on her yellow jumper.

Quistis had spent more than half her life learning to act against unthinking instinct, so she did not immediately rush to Selphie's side. Instead she dropped to her hands and knees, moving smoothly and almost silently, and cast a tightly focused Scan on Selphie. The spell was a drain on her system, but a necessary one.

Quistis considered the situation.

Someone had done this. There were small sounds in the cavern to her left, so they were probably still around. Quistis could see the shallow rise and fall of Selphie's ribs under her sweater. Selphie was hurt, and Seifer was missing, and there were more people in the cave system than just the Balamb SeeDs.

The Scan spell tightened and shrank around Selphie's comatose body, and Quistis frowned.

Not hurt, _asleep_.

Seifer had no Sleep spells, she knew, and no bullets, either. She reached up, moving as quietly as she could, and switched her headtorch off.

The first thing she noticed was that she could still see. The second thing she noticed was that the light was coming from four distinct sources, hand-held torch beams, gauzy and diffused in the murky smoke-filled air. The cave stank of magic and of gunpowder.

The _third_ thing Quistis noticed were the three dark figures standing in the middle of the cave; and by then she had already dropped to lie belly-down against the gravel. She held her breath so stone dust didn't make her sneeze, and checked her magic. Shiva whispered in the base of her skull, and Quistis tamped down on the snow goddess. GFs were next to useless without backup. She'd only get herself killed.

She raised her chin from the dust and snaked her fingers down to her belt for her whip.

Her prone position didn't allow her much of a look at the strangers, but she could tell from their height and attitude that none of them were Seifer. Two had guns; the third cradled a lump of stone in his arms, and they were all three of them stood looking at something on the floor. The beams of their flashlights made the rocks glitter slickly.

Quistis placed both hands on the gravel flat in front of her and raised herself to hands and knees like a runner on starting blocks. When nobody looked around, she rocked back on her haunches and stood, biting her lip with the strain. She folded the chain shank of Save The Queen into her hands, running her hands over the weapon to check for any snags or weaknesses. The hint of ozone in the air suggested magic-users, so she used her last Protect. A Reflect did service in place of long-cast Shells, damped down to hide the telltale blue glow of casting.

And then she pushed off from the wall, hand sweaty on the whip in her right hand, and walked out into the cavern.

She was halfway across the cave, moving fluidly and silently, before they even noticed her. One face turned towards her, then another, unnaturally white in the gloom above uniformly black clothes.

"Balamb SeeDs!" Quistis shouted. She dropped the chain lash of her whip on the floor and let it drag behind her, gathering dust at her heels as she tensed her arm to work up momentum for a swing. The small group split apart like a nut.

Quistis took one look at the ground and lost it.

It was a gradual process which began by stripping her of her poise, then her advantage, and would have concluded with her losing her lunch if SeeDs had not been trained to avoid that very eventuality.

There was blood _everywhere_.

Torchlight glinted stickily from the rocks, from scarlet streaks on the face of one of the soldiers and from sodden dark wool. There was blood on Seifer's sweater, and on his dark hat, and smeared around his mouth. He was lying on the ground, sprawled as untidily as a festival puppet, and he wasn't moving.

Quistis's knuckles tightened on Save The Queen.

"Balamb SeeDs!" she shouted. "Hands up!" Ice dripped from the syllables as Shiva's song swelled in her head, a litany of revenge served cold.

One of the group dropped his weapon and raised his hands. The second clutched a chunk of pale concrete like a shield. The third cast. Lightning licked out from his spread hands, frying the air with a dry, static tension that lifted Quistis' hair. That was as far as it got before the Thundara rebounded from Quistis's Reflect and hit its caster mid-chest. He fell like a spent shell.

The second man dropped his stone and drew on Quistis. His bullet smashed against a stone pillar a hands' breadth away from her head as she raked her whip across his eyes. Her shields blocked the chips of limestone that would have laid her cheek open, and the hilt of the whip driven into the pit of his stomach dropped him

The third soldier had dropped his gun altogether, palms and face surrender-white in the gloom. Quistis froze him with a Stop.

She dropped to her knees beside Seifer and automatically jammed two fingers under his jaw to check for a heartbeat. As the ringing echoes of the gunshot died away and her hearing returned, she realised that it wasn't really necessary. She could hear Seifer breathing, not the slow soft and very slightly snoring sound he swore he didn't make when he was asleep, but a horrible rattling choking noise that came in gasps rather than breaths and had long pauses in between. The second breath she heard was harsher then the first, and the pause was longer. The third sounded more liquid, with nasty bubbles underneath.

The noise made Quistis quite certain that he was dying right before her eyes. She angled her head to shine the flashlight down his body and noticed a neat hole in the front of his black sweater, frayed around the edges. His chest looked wrong, somehow, as if it had been crushed.

A voice in the back of Quistis's mind shrilled _There's_ _a hole in his chest._

_There's a hole._

_In his chest._

_Oh Hyne._

She ignored it, prayed that the bullet hadn't damaged his spine, and thought of Cure magic.

_That might work, if we're carrying enough. If not, I'll have to wake Selphie up so she can go for help. Esthar_ _City_'_s only an hour away._

He hart sank. Seifer did not have an hour. In her experience of battle magic, Quistis doubted that he had ten minutes. Going for help was not an option. Even waking Selphie up might take too much time.

She tilted Seifer's head back and swept her fingers around inside his mouth to check his airway. Her fingers came out glued with clots of slimy blood, but there was no obstruction. She hadn't expected one. His skin was cold and Shiva-pale underneath his tan.

Quistis dug in her pocket for healing magic. Her fingers discarded a bottle of eyedrops and a Remedy before she found the first Hi-Potion. It looked absurdly small.

_I'm going to need more than that. _

She dug again, frantically, yanking Softs and bottles of holy water from her pockets.

Something tucked into the very bottom of her pocket brushed her fingers gently and Quistis pulled that out as well, yanking the pocket linings inside out. She looked down at the small pile of objects and paused.

The pile glowed.

Quistis rocked back on her heels, pushed the useless items away and stared at the Phoenix Pinion lying on the cave's rocky floor. It glowed gently, a dimmer but far richer light than her torch. The spell bottles caught in the beam cast rainbow prisms on the ground.

Quistis had never expected to be thankful for those two miserable weeks spent on the rocky shores of Winter Island, bargaining SeeD-skills for phoenix feathers. She was glad to prove herself wrong.

She picked up the feather between finger and thumb, smoothing the barbs between her finger. The sticky blood and dust on her skin didn't mark it.

Quistis placed the feather gently on Seifer's chest and knelt back.

Nothing happened for a second. Seifer drew another awful hitching breath, and Quistis thought _Hyne help me, if this doesn't work then I'm going to kill someone._

The feather flared into life, burning brighter than magnesium. The light moved from golden to white-hot and then to pure white. Quistis dropped the Potion she was holding to fling one hand in front of her eyes, and swore that for a minute she could see the bones shading out underneath her skin. The light dimmed and spread, changing to the cracking gold of smokeless flame.

_I'll either cure him or cremate him_, Quistis thought, and then she began to cry. The flames burned brighter and hotter, tracing the outline of a bird on the rough floor and the phoenix erupted into life.

It was much smaller than the ones she had seen on the Winter Island, but its plumage was magnificent; bright peacock-eyelets and trailing tail-feathers dwarfing the actual size of the bird. It hovered for a second near the cave ceiling, furled its wings and dived. Where it impacted, flames erupted greedily from the floor. There was a sharp, wild cry like a hawk's, and then silence. Quistis blinked sunspots from her eyes.

She was not surprised to find that the cave had returned to its normal appearance. There was no smoke in the air, and no burn marks on the ceiling. A few of the items she had scattered so carelessly over the floor had shattered, leaking magic into the dust. Quistis searched for more Potions among them, her hands shaking, hardly daring to look at Seifer.

By the time he rolled over and coughed, she had three Hi-Potions in her hands. She yanked the cork on the first and handed it to him.

"Here, take this."

Seifer's hand closed around hers. He curled his other hand around his ribs, and glanced down as if he had been expecting pain. His face was ghastly pale, with grey shadows around his eyes and in the corners of his mouth.

Quistis watched him like a protective Torama as he tipped the bottle up and drank it. Some of it ran out of the side of his mouth and he coughed again, but at least he kept it down.

"Be okay." he gasped. "Gimme a second."

He looked like he needed more than a second, but Quistis didn't contradict him. She gave him a couple more Potions and watched him come back to himself, skin that little bit darker, body that little bit more comfortable. She knew he was feeling better when he looked at her suspiciously and said "Did you put your hand in my _mouth_?"

"First aid. You remember?"

"Bits." Seifer said noncommittally. His voice was rough, but it improved with every word. He wiped his hand down his jumper and scowled when it came up dirtier than when it started. "I'm ….fine." He choked and spat something into the shadows. "Stop fussing."

"You were dead. I think I'm entitled." Quistis held out another Hi-Potion. "Drink it."

Seifer snorted, but took the bottle anyway. When it was finished he looked up. "What….. happened to you?"

"Don't talk."

Seifer ignored her. "We searched ……everywhere." He looked her up and down. "Almost………… everywhere, I guess."

Quistis shrugged. "I fell. When I woke up, I couldn't find you, so I used the maps to make my own way out. I walked in on you and then I fought them off."

Seifer managed a lopsided grin. "Thanks…for that." He shifted, swore, and ran an exploratory hand over his ribs. "What'd you…use?"

"Phoenix Pinion." Quistis told him.

"Good stuff."

Quistis gave him a critical glance. "You look better." His skin was stark white against the dark woollen hat and there were traces of blood caked in his right ear. Despite this he was breathing, sitting upright and talking more or less coherently, and every one of those counted as a win as far as Quistis was concerned.

"Better than dead. Got to be…some improvement." Seifer said. He balanced a hand against the rocks and pulled himself into a more comfortable position. "Shit. That stings."

"I'm not surprised." Quistis said. She caught a flicker of movement from the heap of bodies in the corner and stood up, wincing at overstrained joints and the leaden heaviness of exhaustion. "They're waking up. Are you okay if I leave you?"

Seifer looked over to the men and looked back down at the rocks, seared with magic and the slaughterhouse scent of blood. "Yeah. Do me….a favour.."

"Of course."

"Find …Hyperion" Seifer told her, direct as a bullet.

Quistis nodded and left him.

The movement she had seen turned out to be a side-effect of the thunder spell beginning to wear off the oldest soldier. His hands were beginning to twitch slowly in uncoordinated bursts as his nervous system recovered from the electricity. Quistis drew a Stop from him and used it to freeze him in place. She rifled the soldiers' trouser pockets for healing magic and tied their hands behind their backs with their own webbing belts. All their clothing and items were black and nondescript. Serial numbers and insignia had been filed carefully from their weapons, badges ripped from equipment to leave only a few trailing threads. She found a homing beacon similar to her own in one of the packs and stuffed it in her own pocket.

They'd been careful, but magic, to Quistis, meant _SeeD_, and SeeDs meant _Garden_, and she could guess which one.

When they were secured to her satisfaction she uncorked a Remedy she had found on one of the soldiers and knelt beside Selphie. She cradled the Trabian SeeD's head in her arms and dribbled the liquid in between her lips until Selphie choked and coughed.

"What in _bloody hell_ happened?"

Quistis doled out another Cure. She hadn't used this much healing magic since Seifer had locked the group of first years in the Training Centre and then forgotten about them. "A Sleep spell. Soldiers attacked you both."

"Soldiers?" Selphie sat up. She traced her fingers through the dried blood on the side of her face and then ignored the stains as though they were nothing of any importance. "You mean SeeDs? Did Seifer see them? What'd he say?"

Quistis winced. "He isn't really in any condition to talk right now."

"He's _dead_?"

"No! He'll be okay, for now. But we have to get back to Garden quickly. Can you stand?"

"I'll manage." Selphie climbed to her knees. She smiled like a sunburst as Quistis laid Strange Vision gently in her hand. "So where are these soldiers? I feel like hurting somebody."

Quistis allowed herself a faint smile. "There's laws against that."

"I think you'll find they're more like guidelines."

"They're definitely laws, Selphie."

"Pity." Selphie said. Her smile should have looked more reassuring because it was on the face of a sweet innocent little girl. It didn't. They walked over to the other side of the cave together and Selphie lost the smile as soon as she saw Seifer.

"_Hyne_."

"You're telling…me." Seifer said. His voice sounded as rough as dragon scales.

"You look awful." Selphie told him. In fact, Quistis thought that he looked slightly better, shadows and dirt camouflaging the worst of the blood.

Seifer scowled. His eyes went to Quistis's empty hands. "Hey, what about..the sword?"

"I'll go." Selphie said quickly.

"Bastards took it." Seifer said by way of explanation. "Might want to start over …there." He jerked his head in the general direction of the soldiers, and Selphie set off.

Quistis took advantage of the lull to lean towards him and ask "What happened?"

Seifer shrugged. "They got lucky." He didn't bother to add that four on one made their own luck as far as fighting was concerned.

"Where're they from?"

Seifer avoided her eyes. He scrabbled in the dirt for a rock, rolled it away, and settled more comfortably into the gravel. "Galbadia."

Quistis frowned. "_Again?_"

"Yeah."

Quistis would have asked more questions, questions like _how do you know_ and _are you sure_, but right then Selphie appeared with Hyperion and she decided that there were more important things to worry about. "Let's get out of here."

"I couldn't agree more." Selphie said adamantly. She held out Hyperion to Seifer, who checked the blade as closely as a borrowed headlight would allow, and then used it to lever himself to his feet.

They woke up the prisoners and got them walking towards the exit. Quistis would have expected Seifer to be a little over-enthusiastic in the encouragement department, but he barely looked at the soldiers. It was as if all his anger had been stored away like ammunition, destined for another target. He looked fine until you noticed that he was moving a little too carefully, as if he stopped faking it for one minute he'd fall over.

Quistis worried, and tried not to show it. Instead she kept her eyes on the circle of sunlight that appeared as they neared the cave mouth, watching as expanded from the size of a gil coin to a rift the diameter of a beachball and finally to a gap so large you could drive a truck through it. One of the soldiers halted and Selphie prodded him in the back with all the enthusiasm Seifer wasn't showing.

"Looks like we made it."

Quistis nodded.

The desert spread out around them, rocks in all shades of ochre and sienna and grey, something that looked like grass but wasn't. The heat was punishing. There were a few ramshackle buildings lined up against the mine entrance, machinery rusting away to powder in the blowtorch sun. The mine itself was a simple oval passage hacked into a rock outcrop that jutted from the desert like an albino shark's fin.

Quistis dug in her pocket for their own homing beacon. Selphie lined their captives up against the cliff face, sat them down and shucked off her yellow jumper. Seifer pulled himself up onto a rock and sat there with his knees drawn up to his chest, scowling over his elbows at the soldiers. His knuckles were white on the hilt of the gunblade.

Quistis aligned her fingers on the rim of the beacon, stabbed at two buttons simultaneously and watched as a LED screen flickered into life. She typed in a code, placed the beacon carefully on a flat outcrop of pale stone and walked over to Seifer.

"Garden should be here soon."

Seifer shrugged. He had looked still from a distance, but this close she could see him fidgeting, the scrape of a boot on rock, the flicker of his fingers over the handle of the gunblade. The only concession he had made to the white–hot sun was to remove his hat.

"Do you need another Cure?"

Seifer froze. "I'm okay." He caught his breath as he adjusted position and relaxed, elbows on knees. "What're we doing with them?"

"Who?"

"Those assholes."

"We could take them with us." Selphie called.

Seifer coughed and spat. "Wouldn't waste the weight."

Quistis considered. The transport that collected them would likely contain SeeDs of all three denominations, and she was reluctant to introduce Seifer's enemies into the midst of so many potential allies. "They've got a beacon." she said, and dug in her pocket. "Let Galbadia come and pick them up."

"We could lock them in the mine. Dynamite the door. Nobody'd find them." Selphie said. She spun her nunchucks and regarded the smallest soldier with a look of bright-eyed ferocity.

Seifer grinned slightly at this show of solidarity. "No dynamite."

"No." Quistis said reluctantly. "But we can't leave them out here. The beacon might fail. Monsters could come. We'll have to find some shelter."

"There's one easy solution." Selphie said. "Death is not a welfare issue."

Seifer shook his head. "It'd take too long."

"Really? I would have thought it'd be quite quick."

"Not the way I'd do it."

Quistis pitched her voice to carry. "Nobody is killing anybody." She nodded at one of the ramshackle sheds. "We'll put them in there."

Seifer shrugged again. Quistis wasn't sure whether his silence was assent, disagreement or simply a result of his injuries. She made her mind up rather quickly when Seifer grabbed the gunblade in his right hand, jumped off the rock and walked over to the Galbadians, Hyperion gleaming in the sun. She was further away but Seifer was tired, and so they both reached the men at about the same time.

One of the three managed not to look afraid. The other two looked as if they had already wet their pants, and Quistis couldn't blame them. Seifer was covered in blood, his knuckles were white on the hilt of the gunblade and he was scowling at the Galbadians like he was trying to kill them with his eyes. Quistis wasn't worried about that possibility, but she _was_ worried about more conventional methods of carnage.

"Seifer." she said warningly. "You can't kill people when they're tied up."

Seifer sighed. He turned to face her, winced and put his hand to his forehead again. "I won't." he said. He let the sword fall and shrugged out of his filthy jumper. "Give me your shirt."

"_Pardon_?"

"I wasn't talking to you, Quis. Give me your fucking shirt. I think that's the least you owe me."

Quistis frowned.

The smallest Galbadian, his mouth effectively stopped with a Silence Spell, did his best to indicate the difficulty of removing shirts, indeed, any item of clothing, with your hands tied behind your back. He did a credible job of it. Seifer bent down, wedged the tip of the gunblade in the webbing secured around the Galbadian's wrists, and twisted the blade. The ropes fell free. The soldier, his eyes rolling in terror, stripped the T-shirt off and handed it to Seifer.

Seifer tied the ends of webbing together and knotted them back around the soldier's hands. When the man was once more secure he replaced his own blood-smeared vest with the black T-shirt. Quistis reached out and brushed his arm with her hand, infusing a trickle of high-level Cure magic through the pads of her fingers.

Seifer gave her a look that was part gratitude and part exhaustion as he lifted Hyperion carefully from the ground.

Selphie jabbed one of the Galbadians in the small of his back with her nunchucks. "Shall we put them in?"

Quistis scanned the sky for any sign of an approaching transport and nodded. The three men would spend an acutely uncomfortable few hours secured in a tin shed in the baking heat before Galbadian rescued them. It wasn't what they deserved, but it was as mild a punishment as she could bring herself to allow. Examples must be set, and although she knew Seifer would only be too happy to shoot each and every Galbadian in the head, there were two problems with that. The first was that he was out of bullets, and the second was that it was highly illegal. The ethics of hiring one Garden of mercenaries to fight a second Garden were fluid and interchangeable.

Most of the soldiers seemed to regard healthy competition as nothing more than a highly dangerous contact sport, but it was officially prohibited.

Officially.

Selphie shoved one of the taller Galbadians in the small of the back, being as high as she could reach. Seifer stopped her. "Wait a sec."

Quistis hesitated. "Seifer-"

"This won't take long." He turned back to the smallest Galbadian. Thanks to his theft of the man's T-shirt, he was possibly the only member of the group who would be even halfway comfortable in the baking shack. "D'you say someone paid you half a million?

The soldier nodded.

"It's not enough."

This time the nod was more emphatic.

"Mind if you take a message to Martine for me?"

The man shook his head, obviously bright enough to work out that he had no choice. .

"Hold still." Seifer told him. "This won't take a minute."

* * *

"You shouldn't have done that." Quistis told him, when they were all safely on the Ragnarok.

Seifer leaned his head against one of the craft's many breakproofed windows. "Hell, I know. I should've killed them."

"I've got no problem with tying them up and leaving them in the desert. But writing DON'T TRY THAT AGAIN on their foreheads in Magic Marker?"

"You didn't like it?"

"It lacked finesse."

Seifer shrugged. "Did you set the beacon?"

"Set, _and _called Galbadia. I left co-ordinates, just in case. They're still SeeDs, and I have a problem with leaving people to roast slowly in the desert"

"I need a drink." Seifer said sourly.

Quistis offered him a SeeD issue canteen Seifer was fairly sure didn't contain vodka. "Here."

"Not that kind of drink."

Quistis rolled her eyes and watched him like a hawk.

Seifer knew he was doing a crappy job of convincing her that he was feeling fine. His voice sounded better to his own ears, and he was doing his best job of walking without wincing, but she wasn't having any of it. This might have been a side-effect of seeing him shot through the chest. Seifer appreciated her concern, but it was interfering with his plans. Plus, he was afraid that she would somehow sense the GF inside his skull. He didn't think it was that obvious, but then he hadn't had much practice at junctioning.

Seifer hadn't heard much from Tiamat since he'd passed out, but now it was beginning to make its presence felt. Lizard-snickers vibrated in his skull as it carved itself a dwelling, rejecting all the memories Seifer offered it and taking others. He wondered if this was what Quistis felt like _all the time_.

No wonder she was so cranky.

Selphie leant over the back of the row of high seats in front. "We'll be back at Garden soon. Do you think we got them all? The monsters?"

"Oh, who the fuck cares?" Seifer said irritably.

Quistis shook her head. "I don't know. I was more concerned about getting us all out safely than completing the mission. I hope so."

"I say we bomb the site from orbit." Selphie said. "It's the only way to be sure."

"That would be immoral."

"So? What's your point?"

"You might miss and hit Esthar." Seifer said. He considered. "We ought to try it. Who's driving this thing?"

"Nida." Selphie said. She frowned. "And Xu. Oh, it's never going to work."

Seifer shrugged. "Worth a try." He glanced out of the window and watched the white city come into view beneath them.

"What?" Quistis said absently. She touched his wrist again and Seifer jerked his hand away as Tiamat brightened at the thought of approaching destruction. It felt like something had closed its claws on his temples and squeezed. The resulting headache combined with the pain in his chest to make his plan seem like a really, really bad idea. The timing was impeccable, but the actual physics would require more work.

_Sorry_, he thought, insincerely at Quistis, _but I have to do this._

He'd set up the surveillance blackout at Odine's lab to coincide with his return to Esthar. The festival concert would take care of Odine's renta-cops, and his machine would ensure that there wouldn't be anything to see even if people were looking. It was a good plan, but he hadn't factored in being shot in the chest.

The wound was a problem, but it had helped Seifer make his mind up, somewhere between the mine entrance and the cockpit of the Ragnarok, because he couldn't afford Odine trying again while he was in the hospital, Hell, he didn't want to keep his guard up for that long, wasn't sure he could. It would be far easier in the long term to deal with Odine as he had originally planned. In the short term, it would be a bitch, but Seifer was pretty sure he could handle it. Laguna would be pissed, but Laguna didn't have to know. Odine wouldn't be telling any tales.

Of course, first he'd have to make it off the airship…...

Seifer got up.

"Where're you going?" Selphie called.

Seifer shrugged. "I need to piss."

"Eww. Too much information."

"You asked."

"I wish I hadn't."

Quistis touched his hand again and cast a burst of ice-cool healing magic. "Try not to run into any more Galbadians." she said. Seifer thought that he must be faking health slightly more successfully. Her face had almost lost its concerned frown.

"I won't." Seifer said, and left.

That turned out to be a lie too; the transport was stuffed full of SeeDs of all shapes, sizes and Gardens. Seifer almost fell over a pair of Galbadians dealing a hand of Triple Triad on his way to the bathrooms, and there was a whole group of them sprawled asleep at the entrance to the engine room. Seifer picked his way through them carefully. He angled his head to check out the best spot and caught a glimpse of bright yellow hair.

Seifer grinned.

Zell was hovering over one of the engines like a concerned mother Chocobo, feet a bare few inches from the yellow stencilled DO NOT CROSS sign. He wore his fighting gloves along with the rest of his bastard skater-gear outfit, and almost pulled it off.

It was impossible to be silent with lungs that felt like grated glass and a body that felt like an arthritic ninety-year-old, and Zell turned before Seifer was more than five metres away. The ex-knight was treated to a grin he had done absolutely nothing to earn.

"Seifer!"

Seifer grinned back, infected by Dincht's enthusiasm like it was some kind of virulent contagious disease.

"What happened? You look like shit, man." Zell asked. He closed the distance between them with a few quick strides and went to clap Seifer on the shoulder. The ex-knight shied away, fell sideways, and Zell ended up getting a palmful of wall instead of Seifer's shoulder.

"You alright?"

Seifer pushed himself of from the bulkhead. He was getting really tired of that question, and he was getting even more fed up with the concerned tone of voice in which it was invariably delivered. "Yeah, I'm okay. But don't hit me there. In fact…just don't hit me."

"Bad fight?"

Seifer shrugged.

He didn't particularly want to lie to Zell: Dincht was one of those overly simplistic people who always seemed to be able to tell when somebody was not telling the truth and who took lying very seriously indeed. He got round it by just not saying anything.

Zell babbled on. "Saw Fuu, I think, but she was on her way back. She'll be sorry she missed you. They're both fine." he continued, answering a question that it was understood Seifer would never ask him so that the ex-knight didn't have to. "Xu and Nida, they're here too."

"I heard." Seifer said. The thought of Xu co-operating with anybody scared the shit out of him. "They get on?"

They're a couple. Where've you been?

"Esthar." Seifer muttered. "Hell, that must be the most boring relationship ever."

"I guess –"

"Apart from yours, Dincht."

"You know, I can't wait for you to get better so I can kick your ass."

"Dream on." Seifer muttered. He shifted into a more comfortable position, one that didn't send little red-hot knives of pain down his spine, and tried to project an aura of health and vitality. It didn't work.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. I'm fine." Seifer said, in the face of all evidence.

Zell, thank Hyne, did not seem to notice. He clicked his fingers. "Reminds me. There's somebody else who wants to see you back at Garden. "

"Maybe later."

"Trust me, you do not wanna miss this." Zell said, and grinned.

"Is this pile of junk stopping before Balamb?"

"Yeah, sure. We've got SeeDs from all the Gardens to drop off. We're stopping once down by the harbour, and then the rec field for Balamb, and then over to the east for Trabia Garden. Why?"

"No reason." Seifer said. He grabbed for the railing as the Ragnarok lurched, steel hull plates flexing and settling like the hide of a genuine dragon. There was the subtle sensation of deceleration, a change in the whining pitch of the motors. "We're stopping now?"

"Yeah. We're almost at the harbour."

"Well, nice to meet with you. I gotta get back to Quistis." Seifer swung his sword over his shoulder and muffled a cough against his hand. "See you back at Balamb."

Zell waved. "Sure."

After that, Seifer found that things went easily. He followed the largest group of SeeDs he could find down to the hangar, fitting in easily among the raucous bloodstained pack and hoping that nobody spotted his sandy hair among the crowd. He walked down the steps and into the cool pale alleys that surrounded the harbour, leant against the wall, and coughed his guts up. When the raw feeling in his throat subsided he swallowed, drank his second-to-last Cure and set off across the city.

The streets were eerily empty, though the air was thick with the thud and rattle of enthusiastically played rock music. Seifer made a point of missing every city square and pavilion that could conceivably accommodate a band, and he still had to change his course twice to avoid crowds. The music dulled his sense of hearing and did nothing to make him feel at ease. He misjudged sounds, mistook a group of Estharian teens for undercover SeeDs and almost drew on them. Even the wind blowing an empty juice carton across the walkways made him spin and reach for Hyperion.

_I would advise you to watch your back_, Laguna had told him in the street.

Well, Seifer hadn't, and now he was having to pay for it. His lungs blossomed with pain, and his initial fury at Odine was slowly being replaced by a leaden resolve to reach the lab and finish this shit off once and for all.

_Fucking lying fucking bastard_, he thought.

Determination and the dregs of an adrenaline rush got him to the lab itself. A luckily placed waste disposal skip got him up the ladder and onto the roof. Seifer had factored the gate guards into his plan, but he had not counted on being shot in the chest. It made climbing a challenge. It made _everything_ a challenge.

He kicked the door open and climbed down into the lab.

* * *

The Ragnarok landed on the mud-spattered playing field next to Balamb Garden with the grace of a bird in flight. Even so, the jolt threw Quistis against a bulkhead. She apologised to the cadet whose hand she had narrowly missed treading on and carried on searching for Seifer. It had been thirty minutes since he had left. In that time, Quistis had stopped worrying that he had somehow managed to get lost among the crowds and started worrying that either he'd passed out somewhere inaccessible or been shanghaied by vengeful Galbadians. She supposed she shouldn't have let him out of her sight, but he'd been looking much better when she left him. Now, of course, she couldn't find him at all. It was not an improvement.

She spotted Zell's distinctive hairstyle among the crowds of disembarking SeeDs, and grabbed his sleeve.

Zell's grin was like a sunburst. "Heyy, Quistis!" he said delightedly, and looked around. "Where's Almasy? He said he was with you. I guess you guys made up." He took one glance at Quistis's dismayed face. "You're still on a break?"

"You've seen him?"

"Sure." Zell said. "Met him in the engine room. He looked kind of rough."

When Quistis didn't appear to be overjoyed by this piece of information he offered up the sentence "Told me you had a bad fight." tentatively.

Selphie materialised behind Zell. She shook her head at Quistis and joined the interrogation. "When?"

"Just before we stopped at the port to let the Galbadian SeeDs off." Zell glanced helplessly from worried face to worried face. "What's the problem?"

Quistis put the words _Galbadian_ and _stopped_ together and came up with a solution she didn't like. "Oh, no."

"Surely he wouldn't-" Selphie said at the same time.

Quistis looked at Selphie. She managed to incorporate into the glance the idea that any theory hinging on Seifer's innate sense of self-preservation was doomed from the start. "Call Martine." she said. "Now."

"I don't get it." Zell said plaintively.

"Zell, I don't have time. It's a long story."

"The Galbadians tried to kill Seifer again." Selphie said.

"Apparently not that long. Where's that phone?"

Zell's brain finally caught up with the rest of the conversation. "That's _suicide_."

"That's Seifer." Selphie told him.

All of the other SeeDs had filed out of the craft by the time Quistis managed to lay her hands on a phone, a pad of paper and Martine's private number. It took her nearly as long to talk to Martine in person, a feat she achieved only by a combination of sweet talk, copious name-dropping and undisguised threats.

His voice was cool, as always. "SeeD Trepe? What seems to be the problem?"

"A matter of some urgency." Quistis told him. "I need to find Seifer Almasy. Is he there?"

There was a long pause, and then the same cool voice, unchanged. "You really should learn to keep better track of your SeeDs, Ms Trepe."

Quistis tapped her fingers on the phone's plastic casing. "Is he there, or not?"

"I cannot hear any screaming, so I would guess not. Why? Has he wandered off again?"

"You know why."

A fraction of a pause. "I can assure you I do not."

"I think you do. I don't know whether you found your SeeDs in the West Coast desert yet, but we did. That vendetta's getting a little old, don't you think? It's been two _years_."

There was no reply from Martine. A seed of suspicion blossomed in Quistis's head.

"Did somebody _contract_ you?"

The silence on the other end of the phone told Quistis all that she needed to know. "By SeeD regulations you are required to divulge to me any details of inter-Garden contracts that may influence a mission."

"You are not on a mission."

Quistis attacked, using words as precisely as Seifer himself wielded his gunblade. "I am. And my failure to locate a member of my mission party is blowing serious holes in my ability to carry out Esthar's inter-Garden contract which, oh, wait, you are also a part of. So I've got you coming and going. You _will_ tell me, and don't even think about putting the phone down, because I will come personally to Galbadian Garden, and _ask. _And I will not be polite about it."

"But…."

"I'll ask you again. Was there a contract?"

Martine's voice sounded defeated. "There was."

"Who with?"

"Laguna's pet scientist. Odine."

It took Quistis a second to assimilate this information. "Let me get this straight. _Odine_ paid you _half a million gil_ to take a contract out on Seifer?"

"He did."

"Now there's somebody who doesn't keep in touch with current events." Selphie said, over her shoulder.

Quistis cut the connection. "Zell, get me a car. And a map. We're going to Odine's lab."

"I can't park there."

"We'll sort something out." Quistis said

"So we're going to stop Seifer before he does anything stupid?" Zell said plaintively.

"He's had nearly an hour." Quistis told him. "He's probably already done something stupid. We're just going to clean up afterwards."

* * *

It was going to be an interesting confrontation. Seifer thought. Odine, on one hand, had guards, up-to-the minute security systems and a civilised person's conviction that violence was not really an option; Seifer, on the other hand, had determination, several hours and a sword. Granted, scientists were not his usual quarry, but he felt certain that they could work something out.

The password for Odine's lab security system had long since worn off Seifer's wrist, but he'd memorised the code. He typed it in and the doors opened for him as cleanly as the mechanisms of his gunblade.

Odine was seated at his desk, hunched over a piece of paperwork. He looked up as Seifer stalked in, and the expression on his face told the ex-knight everything he needed to know. Odine had never expected to see him again. He'd sent him down the tunnels mouthing platitudes and offering tests he knew Seifer would never survive to submit to.

It pissed him off.

Odine half-rose from his chair, his arms moving jerkily in panic. He struggled to get out from behind the desk, but he had already backed himself into a corner. Seifer stalked him like a Torama. Just when the little scientist had almost wriggled from behind the protecting desk, he reached out a long arm, grabbed Odine by the front of his labcoat and hauled him onto the table.

"What is the meaning of-"

"Shut up." Seifer snarled, and punched him. It was a good, solid blow, hard enough to make his knuckles sting. Odine's head snapped back and his nose sprayed scarlet all over a pile of doubtless irreplaceable research material. It took all of his self-control to stop at one.

"You fucking _asshole._"

Odine had the sense to keep his mouth shut. His face was locked in a rictus of self –preservation and was almost as white as his labcoat. His hands flapped ineffectively at Seifer's wrist, but Seifer had spent fifteen years training with every kind of weapon and Odine had spent the last half-century without lifting anything heavier than a Petri dish. It showed.

Seifer twisted the scientist's coat around his hand, tight enough to choke. "Hell, you know." he said in a light, almost conversational tone. "I really got my hopes up."

It was far closer to the truth than Odine deserved, something Seifer hadn't really articulated even to himself. The truth was that he'd hoped for somebody intelligent and helpful who would take one look at him and explain exactly what was happening and what it meant. Seifer knew enough of the real world to realise that people like that usually existed in books and films, but that didn't stop him feeling obscurely cheated.

"Why?" Odine choked.

"You were supposed to be some genius who'd tell me just what the fuck I was supposed to do." Seifer snarled. He realised from the terrified look on Odine's face that he was close to crossing the line marked _insane ranting_, possibly a side effect of being shot earlier that day, and hauled back. Instead he hit Odine again, watched the scientist's blood spatter on his knuckles, and felt damn good about it.

There was an approving snarl from the back of his skull as Tiamat watched the action. The GF's need for blood and vengeance fitted into Seifer's mind like a key, fit too damn well.

_Do it._

_Burn him._

Seifer cleared the rest of the table by sweeping his right arm across it. A tin of pencils overturned and hit the floor like a rainstorm. Jars and conical flasks smashed, left a chemical tang in the air, and melted through the linoleum. He dragged Odine onto it by his collar, watching the man's struggles dispassionately.

"Half a million. Sucker. They'd probably have done it for free."

"I….."

_Kill him. KILL HIM. _

Seifer reached for the knife wedged in his belt. It had once been of Galbadian issue, before Seifer liberated it from one of his assailants. It was black like Hyperion, but much more useful at close quarters. He had dropped the gunblade at his feet to give more room for the initial attack, and it sat on the lino like a pit bull at a puppy party.

"The thing poking your stomach is a knife and I'll gut you like a fucking fish if you even breathe in a way I don't like. You're going to answer a few of my questions"

"You can't kill me." Odine said foolishly. He looked at the growing smile on Seifer's face and tried again. "You're a SeeD. You can't knife me in cold blood."

Seifer grinned.

"You can't just kill me." Odine repeated.

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"I never made SeeD." Seifer said. His grin widened. "It's not your lucky day."

He sensed fierce approval from Tiamat.

_Good. Make him bleed. Make him scream and beg and burn._

Seifer found his own hand reversing the grip on the blade. He grabbed for control, almost dropped the knife into Odine's leg and caught it at the last minute.

Odine moaned, the thin tiny sound of a dying animal.

_He tried to kill us._

"No." Seifer told him. "He tried to kill _me_. That means I get to decide."

Odine didn't look any more reassured that the man holding a knife on him was swaying, talking to thin air and had what looked like dried blood caked in one ear.

_KILL HIM._

"No."

He was glad that Odine could only hear his side of the conversation; threats didn't work too well if they didn't hold teeth. The GF was right about one thing, though. Basic SeeD teaching held that it was a bad idea to back your enemy into a corner unless you were prepared to kill him or turn him, and Odine was cornered right now. Seifer wasn't allowed to do the first. He was prepared to try the second, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

He fought for control "You used to be a knight. True?"

Odine nodded. He looked as if he was past wondering what Seifer knew and what he didn't. The ex-knight was glad. It could only make his job easier.

"Why'd you lie about it?"

Odine gulped like a landed goldfish. Seifer shook him, gently. "I'm going to need more than that."

The scientist's position made it hard to talk without him choking on his own saliva. Id did nothing to make him more attractive. "I did things. " he moaned.

"_What_ things?"

"Terrible things. In ze occupation. The people-zey would have killed me for zat, if I hadn't told zem I was controlled."

"You lied to them." Seifer said bluntly.

"It vas never a lie." Odine said indignantly. He started to struggled upright on the desk and Seifer slammed him back down again. "Uh…I proved it…I said zat I couldn't be a knight. That if I was, ze death of my sorceress vould have killed me, driven me over ze edge. There was precedent. There's precedent for everything, if you look hard enough. None of ze knights ever survived before. I told zem zat if any did, then zey –would be crazy. Psychotic. Unable to function. So I couldn't hav been one." He started to sob. "I couldn't hav been a knight."

"So I'm your problem. I'm still standing. I'm okay. But Edea's still alive."

"Ultimecia's…dead."

"True." Seifer said reflectively. He left the knife fall and leaned in closer to Odine's face. The scientist's breath smelt, and he stank of fear-sweat, neither if which did anything to make Seifer any more well-disposed towards him. "So you never could help me. You lied about it to get me to Esthar? And then when I proved your theory wrong you decided I was getting in the way and paid Martine to have me killed?"

"You….understand?" Odine wheezed. The corners of his lips were beginning to turn a nasty shade of blue. Seifer slackened his grip and Odine took a huge gulp of air. His body flopped and wheezed like the first sentient monster emerging from the seas.

"Why you tried to kill me?" Seifer said. "Sure. But what about the SeeDs with me? Did you think about them?" His voice turned dangerous, edged with GF-vengeance. "Were they collateral?"

"I didn't-"

"Didn't think. Right. Seems for a smart person you do a lot of not thinking."

"Don't-" Odine stuttered.

"Don't what? Trust me, after what I'm going to do to you, you won't even be able to go near cutlery again without getting flashbacks." Seifer snarled. "And Edea? Was that another lie?"

"Not precisely. I hav researched ze sorceresses for years. I was intrigued. And yes, I admit I knew zat zere was a chance you could be on ze island." He coughed. "It was too good to miss."

"But you can't help her? You can't help me? My dreams-did you ever have anything like that?"

"Zey go -zey might go, with time. Zey might not. I hav such a small pool of data to work with."

"Interesting." Seifer said. The ache in his ribs was reblossoming, and the pain only made him want to punch Odine more.

Odine tried an appeasing grin. "I told you vat you wanted to know, yes? You will spare me? I can help-anything you want-"

"Shut up. I'm thinking."

"You don't want my help?"

Seifer didn't have to think about that one. "No."

"It is valuable-"

_Just when you think you can't respect a person less_. Seifer thought. "Shut up, and listen. If you ever try any shit like this again, I'll hunt your ass down and kill you. And that goes for all the Balamb SeeDs. Edea, Quistis, Rinoa, Ellone, Squall, Cid, me, I suppose, and everybody else who's got anything to do with Balamb Garden. Understand?" His grip tightened on Odine's collar.

"-I-understand-" Odine wheezed.

"Because people already know what you've done. I've told the SeeDs, all of them, and Laguna isn't as dumb as you think. He's onto you. If I don't walk out of here then SeeD's'll tell the whole of Esthar what you really did. They'll be after your blood. Laguna 'll have to kill or exile you. Either way, you won't be able to practice any of your science ever again."

Odine had looked frightened when Seifer had threatened to pound his head into the floor. Now the expression on his face started to shade into terrified. "I'll help! I'll help Balamb! I promise!"

Seifer grinned. Everybody had their breaking point. He'd just hit Odine's with a hammer. He began to taunt the scientist some more, and the words caught in his throat.

And that was the point when Seifer's victory began to sour.

He coughed again, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and swallowed. Odine looked at him in surprise, but he didn't look terrified enough for Seifer. "What?" he snarled, and slammed the scientist down on the desk, hard enough to send a second cascade of pens falling to the floor.

Odine held both hands out to his sides, very carefully. "I think-"

"Who cares what you-" Seifer told him, and then another coughing spasm racked him. He put the coughing down to cigarettes, and the blood on Odine's shirt down to misjudging the force of his blows, and then blamed the rising pain in his chest on being shot earlier in the day.

It wasn't until thick salty tasting liquid welled up in his mouth that he began to seriously question the wisdom of finishing his last Hi-potion on the roof of the building, and by then it was far too late to do anything about it.

Suddenly Odine became a lesser priority.

Seifer let go of the scientist. When Odine failed to move he shoved him out of the way and bent double, reaching for the edge of the desk. The cool plastic became the only solid object in a world gone suddenly two-dimensional with survival. Odine was a dangerous distraction, Quistis little more than a potentially useful memory.

Blood drooled from his mouth and left long trails on the pale blue laboratory linoleum. There were scarlet handprints on the rim of the table.

_Quistis is going to kill me_, Seifer thought irrelevantly.

He manage to lift one hand far enough to draw Cure magic. Blue sparks fizzled and died between his sticky fingers.

_Shit. Of course. The lab's magic-shielded. _

Odine righted himself on the desk, rubbing ineffectually at the stain on his white coat. "Let me-"

"No." Seifer snarled. His hands skidded from the desk as he exhaled, landing him in an untidy heap on the floor. The lino looked like one of the stupid abstract paintings that Quistis favoured; spots and swirls and stripes of crimson interspersed with little white dots which Seifer was pretty sure were the result of him not getting enough oxygen to his brain or something. It looked like he'd won gold in the Threaten The Scientist, Then Collapse And Puke Blood All Over The Floor Like A Fucking Asshole stakes.

He pulled himself back up, curling one hand around his ribs as he stood. It helped the pain but did nothing for the choking. The GF shrieked in the back of his mind. Seifer ignored it.

"Help me get…outside."

Odine backed away.

Seifer gave that one up for a lost cause. It had taken him maybe five seconds to walk from the door to Odine's chair, but he had as much hope of making it out the same way without help as Selphie had of shutting up for ten minutes at a time. "You…got….a phone?"

The scientist pointed a pale and trembling finger at a blue plastic unit built into the desk.

Seifer grabbed the receiver and realised with a sinking feeling that the unit was internal-only. He pressed the speed-dial button next to the only name he recognised.

It ringed five times, and then a voice crackled into life.

"_Hi. This is Laguna Loire. Uh. I'm probably not in right now, or busy, or I've lost the phone again, so-"_

"Laguna. Fuck. Hey…. I need help-I-"

"_So if you'd like to leave a message, just-"_

"Look, shut up. You gotta …help me. Get a message to Garden. Balamb Garden, right…..It's Seifer, in Odine's lab, and you gotta-"

"_-right after the tone-and I'll get back to you." _

"Laguna?"

_Bee-eep._

Seifer's hand skidded on the table again. He dropped the receiver and landed on his side, nearly under the desk. There was dust there, and copper wire, and a few of Odine's robots, their legs curled up and their wings coated with a thin layer of dust. The burning in his chest intensified, spreading out through his ribs, clamping down like a vice.

The GF stirred in his brain, snarling as Seifer's ability to ignore it waned, along with his ability to move or talk or, for that matter, breathe.

_Cure? _he thought at it.

The GF fell silent, as if it couldn't understand the concept, and snarled again in impotent rage.

_Oh, fuck you then_, Seifer thought, and died for the second time that day.

Or, at least, he thought he did.

He woke up in a hospital bed some time later, but that was neither here nor there.

* * *

It took me quite a while to thrash this one out, mainly because I was determined not to finish with a cliffhanger, and also because, well, I think I've realised that I don't want to finish this. I'll miss those guys. I'll miss _you_ guys.

Of course I didn't kill them. It's kind of one of my fanfiction rules; _the characters are not mine to kill_, written down for me as a joke card by my sister about four years ago when I first starting doing this. Right up there with the rules about never comparing people's eyes to some kind of precious stone and not randomly grafting strange sexual kinks onto characters for the purpose of writing excruciating porn.

Anyway, thanks for waiting. This one's for altol, asga, dragon princess isis, ghost140, iudex acerbus, jack hanek, kjata, oneiromancy, sak4, seventhe, sulou, superviolist, thistledemon, verdanii, and of course everybody else.

Enjoy.


	20. Chapter 19: The Measure Of My Dreams

Recovering The Satellites:

Sometimes I wake up in the morning

The ginger lady by my bed

Covered in a cloak of silence

I hear you talk inside my head

I'm not singing for the future

I'm not dreaming of the past

I'm not talking of the first time

I never think about the last

Now the song is nearly over

We may never find out what it means

Still there's a light you hold before me

You're the measure of my dreams.

The Pogues: Rainy Night In Soho

Chapter Nineteen: Measure Of My Dreams

And then Seifer woke up.

The first thing that he noticed was that he was not in Balamb Garden, having spent far too much time in the infirmary over the years not to recognise it on sight. The second thing he noticed was that the room looked expensive.

The _third_ thing he noticed was Doctor Kadowaki.

If Seifer had been able to choose the top ten things he would have liked to be greeted with on awaking from an as-yet-undefined period of unconsciousness, the top four spots would have been occupied by Quistis, naked women, a wide and sunny beach, or a combination of the three. The fifth would have been occupied by the doctor, because Kadowaki had about forty years' solid experience of combat medicine tucked under her rather ample belt. And if there was one thing which an injured soldier was always really glad to see on a battlefield, it was an experienced medic.

The doctor looked up and saw him looking back. Her expression changed from genuine worry to vague annoyance. The annoyance, Seifer knew from experience, was a good sign. It meant he probably had all of his limbs.

"Do you remember what happened?" she asked.

"I got shot." Seifer told her. It hurt to talk, though not as much as he'd imagined. An IV line fed into the crook of his left arm, taped in with a flesh-coloured plaster.

The doctor made a mark on the chart and peered at Seifer over her glasses. "You got shot, inexplicably went missing for two hours, and then your Cure magic wore off. Somewhere along the way you managed to acquire a raw GF, don't ask me how. You're lucky to be alive."

_If I had five gil for every time somebody's told me that_. Seifer thought. He re-evaluated, performing the mental checklist that people in hospital beds do in such situations. He wiggled all of his fingers and toes separately, and was relieved to find he still had digits to wiggle. _Legs, check, arms, check, uh-yeah, that's there as well, check, nasty headache, check, clothes, check (even the boots, must've been bad) weird sorta Estharian high-science equipment, check -just what the fuck is that? _

He reached upwards to rub his temples (they'd removed his hat at least) and touched cool slimy gel and the hard plastic edge of a pair of thin pads. Wires led from the pads to the monitor of a mobile CAT scanner, its screen displaying a two-dimensional view of something that looked like a walnut but which might have been his brain. There was a tube going into his nose (_for fuck's sake_) and the air he was inhaling tasted oddly clean on the back of his tongue.

So far, so good.

The one thing he was missing, Seifer realised, was Tiamat.

He sat back in bed, trying to decide whether or not to broach the subject to Doctor Kadowaki and wondering just how the hell to get the tube out of his nose, when she said quietly "I bet you're wondering about the GF."

"What about it?" Seifer said, as casually as possible.

"We junctioned it off you. I have no idea how you got your hands on it. I intend to ask you once you've recovered. 'Til then, it can wait. You're officially off duty. Commander's orders."

Seifer internally groaned. Forget solitary, he'd be lucky not to be shunted up to the moon. It looked like his plan to camouflage his revenge with the festival had not worked just as hard as it could have. "How long've I been out?."

"We scraped you off the floor of Odine's lab three hours ago." Kadowaki said disapprovingly.

"Three _hours_? That's plenty of time. I need to get out of here."

The doctor checked the chart and hooked it back onto a metal clip at the bottom of the bed. "You do not. You're in here for at least a week. Maybe two."

"I-"

"Seifer, this is not a bargaining situation. You're staying in here as long as you have to, you know."

Seifer ignored her. He reached up to check the drip bags feeding into his arm and had time to register the ingredients before Kadowaki slapped his hand away. Saline, glucose, some hardcore Estharian pain relief, cure magic bound to protein carriers. Standard post-junctioning emergency care.

"Don't _touch_ that."

Seifer shrugged and pulled out the neck of his T-shirt to examine his chest. There was a pale star-shaped scar, regular as a tattoo, etched on the left-hand side of his ribcage. He ran experimental fingers over the slick skin, winced, and let the shirt fall back.

"Doesn't look that bad."

Kadowaki's disapproving expression turned a touch more severe. "You have Laguna to thank for that, young man."

Seifer took a second to send an earnest if silent prayer of thanks to Hyne that Laguna checked his ansaphone messages. "He helped?"

"He got an IV in, shot you full of LuvLuv Gs and Cure magic. Quistis found you both some time later and phoned it in."

"What was she doing there?"

"You'll have to ask her."

"She's here?"

There were tribes of Neolithic dinosaurs that couldn't have managed a look as old-fashioned as Dr Kadowaki's. "She's working here, yes. Helping us triage. Not everyone is as lucky as you, you know."

"Lucky? I almost died!"

Dr Kadowaki raised one eyebrow, a look so poised she had to have practiced it in front of the mirror. "The important word in that sentence being 'almost." She picked up her bag.

In the sudden silence, Seifer made out, very faintly, the thump of festival music. He knew he was being dismissed, and Hyne knew he had every right to be-he was conscious and not actually bleeding any more and the doctor had better things to do than tend to soldiers who'd forgotten to stock up on Cure magic before they ran off and did stupid things-but he couldn't resist asking one more question.

"This is Esthar?"

"It is. The President very kindly lent us the use of one of the Estharian hospitals for the duration of the mission. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other patients to check on. If I see Quistis I'll send her along."

"Sure."

"Take care of yourself, and try not to move too much." Kadowaki said, and whisked out of the room. She left behind her a sense of vague unease, a single rubber glove (the purpose of which Seifer tried not to think too hard about) and the lingering scent of Dettol.

He waited long enough for the sunlight in the room to fade from gold to dark amber, for the ache in his chest to creep up like a stalker in an alley. The thump-thump-thump of the music dragged on, outside. There was a widescreen television in the corner but no remote, and when he tried to make it further than the end of the bed his legs decided for him that walking was not really an option.

By seven o' clock he had decided that he was really bored, and that Quistis better show soon, or else, and by eight he had decided that she wasn't coming.

It wasn't difficult to work out. She'd saved his sorry ass twice in twenty four hours, racking up a mountain of karmic debt that Seifer, as ever, had no hope in hell of paying back.

He couldn't blame her for deciding it was over. He'd been pretty fucking stupid.

The music outside ceased for a second and started up again, this tune slightly less monotonous than the last. The beat nicely matched the pulsing pain in Seifer's side, which had progressed from nagging to full-on hammering-at-the-door-and screaming.

He checked the dripline in his arm, sorted out the three plastic bags feeding into the central line, and turned the feed up as fast as it could go. It was a few minutes before the drugs kicked in, crashing through his bloodstream like a tsunami. In Seifer's experienced opinion, it was grade-A pain-relief.

_Fucking typical._ _Laws against Cure magic, and fucking awesome drugs_ he thought, and fell asleep.

It could have been minutes, hours or geological ages later when he woke to the noise of footsteps in the hall. Seifer had time to drag a hand over his face and flick the drip down to minimum level before she walked in the room.

The euphoria induced by whatever cocktail of drugs the Estharian nurses used wore off in approximately one second.

There were dark circles under Quistis's eyes, emphasised by the hospital neon, olive-grey bruises on her knuckles, and a faint line smudged down one cheek that might have been the track of tears.

Seifer waited.

Quistis leant one hand on the doorframe. There was blood caked in the skin around her fingernails. Seifer didn't want to speculate whether it was his, hers or somebody else's. "You've slept?"

_For such a smart person, she really can be fucking dumb sometimes_. Seifer thought, but the best medication in the world couldn't have lowered his guard enough to make him say it. "I guess."

She stood almost awkwardly in the doorway. "I talked to Doctor Kadowaki. She says you're in here for a few weeks."

That's crap. I'll be out of here before she knows it. Hey, you wouldn't help me-

"No."

"Mm. Did we do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill the monsters. Fulfill the contract."

"Hard to tell. Contract says six months monster-free as proof."

They made semi-polite conversation for a while, or as polite as Seifer ever got with half his mind on the pain in his chest and the other half marvelling at all the pretty colours floating round the ceiling. Quistis was careful, too careful; he was sure he said a few things along the way that would have earned him a slap to the head if he hadn't been in hospital. Either he looked really bad, or he was right, and it was over.

Fair enough.

His own pride stopped him asking her to deal with it. Anybody who'd had to drag their latest boyfriend's bleeding body out of danger twice in one afternoon had to be pissed off, and any SeeD who'd screwed up as badly as he had, let two people get the drop on him, was fucked.

Not just people, either. Three Galbadians, of all the Gardens, and a fucking _scientist_.

Quistis's voice flicked back into semi-sharpness. "Are you even listening?

He voice was louder than he'd expected. Seifer was mildly surprised to find that it was because she was sitting on the end of his bed.

"Depends. What're you talking about?"

Quistis gave him a hard glance, leant over the bed and checked the levels of his drip. Finding everything to her satisfaction, she placed one hand either side of Seifer's chest, stared him right in the eye for a good minute, and daintily smelt his breath.

"What are you _on_?"

"Don't know." Seifer admitted, "but it feels good."

Quistis read the writing stencilled on the side of the drip bag and raised one eyebrow in mild surprise. "I'm surprised you're even talking. If you weren't used to Cure magic you'd be unconscious. Remind me to have a strong word with the nurses about SeeD metabolisms. You just don't learn, do you?"

"Try not to."

"Is there any point to me being here?"

Seifer wasn't sure how he felt about that one. "Yeah." he conceded, then "No."

Quistis got up. "I'll come back when you feel better."

Seifer wanted to tell her that he never _had_ felt better, but right then he fell asleep for the second time.

When he woke up she was gone, and so was the medication, replaced by something much weaker and not nearly so much fun. Deprived of chemical entertainment, Seifer worked out how to operate the TV, using a small remote built into the side of the bed. It was while he was watching that he managed to do something that quite possibly nobody else had done in the entire history of daytime viewing.

He learned something useful.

Quistis returned later the same day, washed and scrubbed back into her usual façade of near-perfection. She perched on the edge of his bed like she'd never been away and said in a no-nonsense tone of voice. "Feeling better?"

Seifer shrugged. The tide of glorious anaesthesia had receded, leaving him shaken, sore, and feeling like hospital might be the right place for him to be, after all. He wanted to discuss his discovery with Quistis, but there was a look in her blue eyes which Seifer recognised. She'd got something to say, and she was going to say it or bust. It was much better to relax, let the flow of words blow right over you like a hurricane and pick up the pieces afterwards.

"Good." Quistis said perfunctorily, and plunged on. "Why'd you do it? Why did you have to go after Odine right then? It could have waited."

"I don't do waiting." Seifer told her.

"Apparently not. What _happened_?"

Seifer paused, trying to find a way of explaining his latest misadventure to Quistis in a positive light. He decided to keep it simple. "Odine. He hired Galbadia Garden."

"I know." Quistis said thoughtfully. "We didn't find out until later, though. Zell figured you got off the boat at the port. I thought you'd been rather quiet in the mines. Naturally, we assumed you'd gone to GG to have it out with Martine."

"I'm not suicidal." Seifer said, a man who did not so much court disaster as camp out on it's doorstep with a bunch of roses and a big box of expensive chocolates.

"Mmm." Quistis said noncommittally, then "Why did Odine want to have you killed? I mean, I know he spent the best part of two months with you, but there has to be a better explanation than that."

Seifer scowled. He would have made a comment about how now was not the best time for Quistis to develop a sense of humour, but there was still a lost look in her eyes. He'd seen the aftermath of SeeD battles before. Dr Kadowaki's triage wouldn't have been pretty. "Har har. D' you know Odine used to be Adel's knight?"

"No." Quistis turned the word into a question.

"Laguna told me, just before we left. Didn't think it was important. Turned out it was. 'S been paranoid for years that somebody would find out. Told people all the knights were crazy. And then I showed up, and guess I was pretty crazy at first. Only then I came back to Garden and started acting like a normal SeeD. His theory was crap, so he figured that the easiest was to get me was to go through Edea." He yawned. "Worked fine."

"How did he know you were that close?"

"Trust me. Odine used to be a knight. He knows exactly how close we are. Anyway, he must've thought he had to get rid of me. I wondered why he was so fucking happy when I agreed to fight."

"So you were _too normal_ for him?"

"Yeah."

"If only he knew."

"I'm not crazy." Seifer said, in the face of all available evidence.

"You'd think." Quistis said, obscurely. "So, you had a good reason for rushing off like an idiot. That's something. You should still have waited."

"You're taking this well."

"Mmm. Didn't you stop to think that Garden would have helped you, if you'd asked? Squall's been itching to pin one on him for _years_."

"Hey, it would've worked. If I hadn't run out of Cure magic."

"But you did."

"Guess so." Seifer yawned again. He was exhausted, tired enough that it felt like his fourteen years of insomnia had finally caught up with him, but the sight of the television squatting mutely in the corner behind Quistis reminded him of his discovery. "I figured out how to work the TV."

Quistis raised one eyebrow. "Well done."

"Nah, I mean, I saw something."

"What?"

Seifer blinked. "I thought I saw Edea."

Quistis stared back at him, her blue eyes wide, startled out of her polite façade. "I forgot." she said slowly. "You really don't know. Edea's back at Garden."

Seifer took a moment to process this information. Thinking felt like swimming through warm honey, and he wasn't quite sure whether it was his own metabolism turning traitor or more medication. "You're kidding me. How?"

"Remember the storm?"

"What storm?"

Quistis blushed.

"Oh." Seifer said. "Yeah. That storm."

"It wrecked the lighthouse. Zell radioed Garden and they sent a transport. Edea _had_ to come back. There wasn't anywhere else for her to live."

Seifer scowled. "Let me get this straight." he said. "I wasted three months of my life in this junkyard city trying to get her back and all I had to do was trash her _house_?"

"Apparently so." Quistis said dryly. "Anyway, she sent her love and looks forwards to seeing you when you're better."

"Hyne." Seifer said, not really listening. "If only I'd known it was that easy. So she's back at Garden. What's she doing on the TV?"

"Technically, she's not on the TV." said Quistis, a woman who would have spent her time on the road to hell correcting the spelling of good intentions. "She's appearing on a programme."

"Whatever." Seifer dismissed. "Why's she on it?"

Quistis shrugged narrow shoulders. "Oh, the mission's a popular contemporary issue. That, and concert footage."

The mention of the concert flashed up a recollection in Seifer's rather scrambled brain. Yellow sweatshirt, big sombrero, a high-pitched voice saying _I've got a guitar set on Stage Four with an Estharian band. Gotta get there on time._

"Did Selphie make it in time for her show?"

Quistis winced. "Yes. She was a big hit."

"What'd she sing?" Seifer asked, wondering about the reason for Quistis's pained expression.

"A rousing rendition of 'The Little Things That Kill.' She followed it up with some song about not wearing any underwear. It was a big hit. People threw-well , you can imagine what people threw." She winced again. Seifer thought, not for the first time, that Quistis could be surprisingly prudish for somebody with absolutely no reservations about getting naked in private.

"I bet." Seifer said politely. He paused, and asked "Does she?" in a spirit of further investigation.

"What?"

"Wear any underwear?"

"I don't know. Actually, I do know, but I'm not telling you."

"Spoilsport." Seifer said, and yawned.

"You look tired."

"Thanks. Should look dead."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Nah. I'm fine." Seifer said automatically. He thought about revising his reply, and decided against it. What was she going to do? Watch television? Watch him sleep? "So you're okay with it?"

"With what?"

Sometimes Seifer thought Quistis was the dumbest smart person he'd ever met. "This. With me fucking up again. With me almost getting killed. With me almost getting _you_ killed. With the whole dragging-Garden-into-disrepute thing? You're okay with it?"

Quistis looked at him like she thought he was mad. "I wouldn't say okay. Especially not when you put it like that. But I do understand why you did it, and I-"

The door opened. Quistis paused. Seifer's hand went for his gun before he remembered that he hadn't got one and went for Quistis's instead. It would have worked if Quistis hadn't had the reflexes of a greased rattlesnake. It ended up as a kind of mutual punch.

The nurse who had just entered gave them a mild, incurious glance. "Miss Trepe, I'm afraid that visiting hours are over. You need to leave."

Seifer remembered what he was missing that wasn't Tiamat. "Where's Hyperion? Where did you hide it?"

"Language!" the nurse snapped, shocked. She wasn't nearly as scary as Doctor Kadowaki, and Seifer ignored her completely.

"Where the fuck is it?"

"Seifer-"

The nurse turned the colour of a beetroot. "I resent the implication-!?"

"We have it-"

Seifer paused. "You said what?"

"I said-"

"I wasn't talking to _you_."

Quistis gave both Seifer and the nurse the kind of frosty glare that had tamed Toramas single-handedly. "I said that Garden has the gun. You can relax. Get some sleep. Try to avoid assaulting the nurses."

"Ah, hell." Seifer said morosely, and subsided. "This is shit. The staff here aren't even cute."

"Dr Kadowaki's here."

"Exactly."

The ward sister, assuming the storm had subsided, unrolled a white and blue striped hospital gown. She scribbled something on Seifer's chart and placed it on the bottom of Seifer's bed. The ex-knight regarded it with mild curiosity. The nurse tapped her foot. "You need to put this on." she said, eventually, in the slow, patient tone of voice reserved for the very old or extremely stupid.

"You wish. If you wanted to see my ass, you could've just asked."

Quistis hid a smile with moderate success. "I'll leave."

Seifer poked the gown with one finger, as if he expected it to shrivel away or attack him. "You're fucking abandoning me?"

"No excuses. Put this on." the ward sister snapped. "Your clothes are ruined."

"They're fine."

"They have _holes_ in."

"Yeah, but they're my clothes." Seifer said, with the absolute confidence of somebody who had stared down Ruby Dragons. "Hey, Quistis? Tell Laguna thanks from me. It's a damn good job he checks his voicemail."

Quistis paused on her way out the door. "Laguna? Voicemail?"

"Yeah."

"We're talking about the same person here? Dark-haired, ….yay tall." She held out a hand indicating approximate height. "Rather spacey?"

"Yeah?"

"Seifer, he never checks his messages. Squall's sent call after call. He never gets them. I think he lost his phone."

"Oh." Seifer said, then, after a while, "Well, that unexplains a lot I kind of thought was explained."

Quistis smiled and withdrew. She came pretty regularly after that, though, and there were other visitors, as well.

Fuujin and Raijin came, smiling and teasing him lightly about getting off worse than them. Fuujin wore a bandage casually on one hand. Raijin was unscathed. Raijin was like that, sometimes. Zell brought a pack of Triple Triad cards with him, and chatted up the nurses. Deft dropped a puzzle made of interlinked metal rings on the sheets, "just in case you're bored.", then left without saying anything else. Squall sent a memo, which read WE'LL TALK ABOUT THIS WHEN YOU'RE BETTER. Rinoa sent a note on hand-crafted paper, telling Seifer not to take any notice of Squall's letter.

He never saw Irvine, but one morning after he woke up Seifer found a hard lump under the mattress at the bottom of his bed. It turned out to be a packet of Lucky Strikes, with a scrap of paper tucked into the silver paper. There was a single word printed on the foil. It read 'thanks.'

And after they'd all gone, long after visiting hour had finished, he had another guest. She wore black and smelled of sand and the ozone tang of magic.

Seifer never told anyone what they talked about, not even Quistis, but he felt a lot better when they'd finished.

He had one other visitor.

Like Edea, Laguna turned up when visiting time was over, but unlike Edea he left it much, much later. Hospital wards were never entirely quiet; there was always somebody, somewhere watching TV or moaning quietly in their sleep, but Laguna ghosted in like a velvet-pawed chimera, right when the shifts changed, guaranteeing thirty minutes of uninterrupted time. Seifer didn't think for a minute that it was unintentional. "Laguna?"

The president leant against the wall, with the posture of somebody who could lounge on concrete. His blue chambray shirt glowed gently under the hospital night lighting. "Yeah?"

"Thanks." Seifer said.

Laguna slid the dogtags between his thin fingers. "Don't mention it."

Seifer followed the movement and sighed, remembering pigeons and the man in front of him saying y_ou will finish your mission and you will leave Odine alone_.

"Suppose you're here to ream me out like the rest of fucking Garden?

"Not exactly." Laguna said in an even, pleasant voice.

"I'm warning you, I'm grateful, but I'm not going to fall at your feet or anything. Not sure I could, anyway."

"I'm not here for your gratitude."

"Just as well, really. Come on, you're not fooling anyone. What're you here for?"

Laguna smiled. "I want to offer you a job."

Seifer's first instinct was to laugh in Laguna's face and tell him that he was crazy, but he had a feeling that this had happened to Laguna many times before, and he hated being unoriginal. "What kind of job?" he asked.

"Troubleshooting." Laguna told him.

Seifer liked the sound of that. Shooting trouble had always been his kind of gig. "What's the pay like?"

Laguna smiled and mentioned a sum so large than even Seifer raised his eyebrows. It was the kind of amount you would reach, eventually, if you started off with a one, and kept on adding noughts. Hell, Quistis would be tempted, and she was one of the most unmaterial people he'd ever met.

"Are you interested?" Laguna asked him.

Seifer sighed. "Of course I'm interested. I'd be crazy not to be. But Esthar…"

"Esthar?" prompted Laguna.

"It's not my kind of place. Balamb, well. They think I'm a bastard, right? But I'm their bastard. So thanks. But no."

Laguna took the rejection well. Seifer got the feeling that he'd kind of been expecting it anyway. "You might want to mention this to Squall." he said. "You may be due a pay rise. It might help if you show him more enthusiasm for the job than you've shown me."

"Damn right." Seifer said. He thought of Squall's expression when he told him the news, and grinned. "He's going to love you."

"He's supposed to." Laguna said, in an ironic tone of voice. "He's my son."

_And he acts like it too_. Seifer thought, but said nothing. Laguna was as twisty as a corkscrew, and Squall had been long developing a few diplomatic twists and turns himself. He shrugged, and decided not to bother with an insincere apology. "You'll find someone."

"I think so." Laguna said. "There are other Gardens, after all. Soon to be a fourth."

Seifer had been accused of being slow on the uptake before, but he wasn't that slow. "You're recruiting for a new Garden?"

Laguna smiled, and his white teeth glinted in the neon. "It looks that way, doesn't it?"

"_Why_?"

The President shoved his hands into the pockets of his creased trousers. "To be honest, do you think the Gardens exterminated all of the monsters here today?"

"No." Seifer told him. "Hell, I'm not even sure we got all of them in the caves."

"Exactly." Laguna said. " Therefore, my grand plan hasn't worked. There will be a slight uprising of opinion against me at the polls, and the Gardens will be very cross. However, the monster population will take years to recover, and I think Esthar has been long overdue its own SeeD force."

"You planned this."

"Not exactly."

"Whose side are you on, anyway?"

Laguna shrugged, elegantly. "My own, of course. Isn't everyone?"

Seifer's estimation of Squall's father went up several notches, because anybody who could fuck Squall over that badly _without him even noticing_ surely deserved a round of applause at the least. Possibly a medal. "You _bastard._" he said admiringly.

The profanity washed over Laguna like water from an adamantoise's back. "You will, of course." he said, "speak of this to nobody. Squall'll find out sooner or later, but I'd prefer him to be mad at me. I think he enjoys it. "

"Sure." Seifer said. "You have my word."

* * *

_One month later:_

"You never told me that. " Quistis said.

Seifer shrugged. "You never asked."

She glanced at him sidelong and whisked hair from her eyes. "The man was obviously desperate."

"New Garden, right? Must take a bunch of new personnel. They can't be picky." Seifer bent and picked up a teacup from the sand. He brushed it off, exposing a hairline crack; straightened, and tossed the cup into the sea. The white scrap of china glinted against the southern ocean's waves, and disappeared.

"You know we don't mention Esthar Garden." Quistis said. Her boots had been discarded on top of a packing case full of salvaged china, books and small pieces of furniture that Zell and the other SeeDs had missed in their hurry to evacuate Edea, and her feet looked pale and tiny against Seifer's dark boots. He'd never been one for foot fetishes, but he could see the attraction.

"Mmmm. Fuck, Quistis. We're not at Balamb now. Squall's not here, and what he doesn't hear-"

"-won't worry him. Yes, I know. It's still a sore point, though. Balamb lost a lot of money on that contract."

"Yeah, but we still get paid." Seifer stretched. Warm rain spattered across his face, and he turned up the collar of his coat. The wind sandblasted Quistis's bare legs, and she winced. It was still warm compared to the September chill starting to make itself known at Garden, but the weather still had force. "Better get off this rock."

Quistis cast a practised eye at the weather. "We've got an hour or so. It should hold back to Balamb."

"If you say so."

"I say so."

"Suits me."

Quistis picked up a chair leg which turned out not to be attached to the rest of the chair. "Why didn't you take it?" she asked in quite a different voice, and stuck the chair leg back into the sand.

Seifer detected a certain edge to the words. Quistis's tone of voice was as bright and brittle as glass. "What?"

"Laguna's job." Quistis said impatiently. She bent down and salvaged a perfect, unbroken saucer from the sand.

"Can you imagine? Me, in Esthar? Fucking nightmare. Bad enough at Balamb."

Quistis said nothing. The wind rattled in the sawgrass, accompanied by another flurry of salty rain. Seifer couldn't work out whether she was pleased or disappointed or anything else. He'd always been bad at those female kind of questions, although he knew better than to phrase his problem in those exact words to Quistis.

"So you're staying?"

"I guess."

Quistis sidestepped a fluted pillar that jutted from the sand like a rotten tooth. The storm that had evicted Edea from her home had left little of the ruins of their former childhood home. A smile played around her lips.

Seifer got the feeling that he had successfully navigated a vast and unmapped minefield. He nudged a length of salt-stained curtaining with his boot. "Even if this assignment's just Squall's way of getting us both out of the way while he pussies up to Laguna about his Garden plan."

"I wouldn't have put it quite that way."

"Didn't think you would've."

They stopped for a second to shelter in the lee of a chimney stack. The exposed metal fittings bled rust down the walls and stained Seifer's coat. Quistis put down her sack and ran her fingers along scratches and stains in the rough-cut stones, the other hand always on her whip. The storm had ripped holes in the protective fence that had once encircled Edea's domain, and although so far the monsters seemed to be staying out of the rain, neither of them were taking any chances.

Seifer sifted through the contents of his own bag. "We must've got it all." He pulled a glass fishing float from the bag and examined it critically. "Is this hers? Or is it just junk?"

Quistis barely glanced at the keepsake. "Hers, of course. Can't you tell?"

"No." Seifer said briefly. It had been a long half-day. They'd spent it sifting through the sand, searching for Edea's possessions and mostly finding rubbish. He leaned back against the wall; moving carefully, to avoid pulling at his brand new scar, but not so carefully that Quistis noticed. "Fucking teacups. Don't know why we bother."

"Because they're Edea's." Quistis said. She winced and massaged the soles of her feet; bright red from flying sand and the tough wiry dune grass.

"Yeah. 'Cause they're Edea's."

"She's settling in well."

"No more dreams." Seifer said and felt faint surprise that he'd volunteered the information. "Guess we're done here."

"I think so." Quistis pulled a satphone from her pocket; checked the reception. "No messages."

"You expecting any?" Seifer asked. They rounded the shelter of the pillar and started to make their way back across the beach, leaving behind one set of heavily indented bootsoles and a matching set of narrow footprints arrowing straight across the wet sand.

"Might I remind you that we're on call for the area?"

"Right. Means any asshole south of FH can't cope with one pissed-off Behemoth'll plead for help."

"You love it." Quistis shaded her eyes and gazed out to sea. "Wind's getting up."

"I do not."

"You like to be a hero."

Seifer snorted. "Fuck heroism. I need the money. And I can't think of anything worse than getting called back to Centra when we're half way to Garden. There's more exciting things we could be doing. This bit of coast can go hang for a while. We'll be back in the summer."

"I wonder if the flowers will still be here without Edea." Quistis said thoughtfully.

"Dunno. " Seifer said briefly. "Anyway, these more exciting things-"

"Mm?"

"We could……" He leaned close and whispered in her ear. "Would you?"

"Would I? Would you?...oh, well, you obviously would. You know I'm not wearing the right clothes for that."

"There _are _no right clothes for that. So no?"

"We'll see."

They had reached the transport by then. Seifer stood in its lee and vainly tried to light a cigarette while Quistis snagged her boots from the top of a packing case. She dusted sand from her feet, jammed the boots on and slammed the transport hatch shut. "Let's go."

They dug the transport ramp out of the sand using hands and heels, and went inside. Seconds later the ATX-11 scraped its hull on the sand and took off in the direction of Balamb, spraying surf from underneath its wedge-shaped hull. Inside, Quistis flipped switches, while Seifer took one look at the control panel and pressed the button marked _autopilot_.

"I'm not sure we should be doing that."

Seifer squinted through the foam-flecked windscreen. "What? It's a straight run."

"Yes, it is. But only if you rule out half of the Centra archipelago. Oh, yes, and the FH bridge too."

"It's programmed to skirt the Galbadian coast. Promise."

Quistis reluctantly took her hands away from the instrument panels. "All right. But I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' if we happen to crash and burn."

"Fine." Seifer gave her the shrug of a man with more important things on his mind than imminent fiery immolation. "You know-"

"What?"

"We could go somewhere else. Visit the new Garden in Esthar. Or just take off. Nobody would care. Well, they would, but they'd get over it." He took off his long coat and brushed ineffectually at the salt-stains along the hem. "Hear south Trabia's nice at this time of year."

Quistis looked out at the grey sky and the even greyer sea. Balamb would be even colder, with a freezing wind blowing straight from Winter Island. "It's tempting, but I thought we had better things to do."

"What better things?" Seifer said. He started to put his coat on, shrugged one arm into a long sleeve, and then took it off again and sat down, with an expression that meant he'd worked something out. "Oh. Those better things. I didn't think you were that interested."

"I changed my mind. I need to warm up." She checked their course and sat down onto one of the hard grey seats. Seifer beside her; his summer tan fading. The china packed into the boat's cargo bay chinked as the boat skipped over wave after wave.

"I'm not a hot water bottle." Seifer said. Seconds later he said; "Okay, I can be. You know, right incentive..."

"Mmm?"

"You're really cold. Let me-"

Quistis let him.

The temperature inside the transport was nearing tropical when Quistis's phone went off. It was a high, annoying ringtone, the kind you couldn't ignore. It was designed that way.

Quistis stretched one arm down to pick it up, untangling the phone from a bundle of sheepskin-lined jacket. "Duty calls." she said, and pressed a button on the handset. The screen began to reel off co-ordinates.

"Duty." Seifer said "has no fucking sense of timing. I thought all the missions had finished for the season. It's nearly Remembrance Day."

Quistis pulled on her jumper, working the thick wool down over her ribs. "There's always another mission."

_There's always another mission_, she thought, _and with luck, there always will be_.

At the risk of reeling off something the length and approximate wordcount of an Oscar acceptance speech, thanks to everybody, to those who reviewed at the start and at the end and in the middle, and those that never really got round to it at all. Writing it's been, to quote, the most fun I could ever have had by myself.

And no, there won't be any more. There may be more of something else, but no more ff8. (Save for the epilogue, because everyone deserves a happy ending.)

It's been fun.


	21. Epilogue: The Hunt

Epilogue: The Hunt

(A Recovering The Satellites short story.)

People ask me how I do it, and I say there's nothing to it

You just stand there looking cute

And when something moves, you shoot.

And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

Tom Lehrer-The Hunting Song

"But you _promised_!"

Seifer scratched his head. Nearly ten years, and he still hadn't quite mastered this parenting thing. His teachers had always said he was a slow learner.

The blond and angel-faced child in front of him stuck her bottom lip out and folded her arms. "_Please!_"

"Quit that," Seifer said uncomfortably, "or I'll-"

"You'll what?"

Seifer, a man who had faced down several dragons and most of the current heads of state, was at a loss. "I'll tell your mother." He could deal with shouting and tantrums, but not with the guilt trips. There was something about the eyes.

Seifer and Quistis's oldest offspring sniffed and folded her arms. "_You_ did, when you were my age." Her practice sword trembled in her hand.

"How'd you know that?"

"Somebody told me?" Lily said innocently. Seifer didn't trust her for a minute.

"Who -cause if it was Uncle Irvine, then there's some things I could tell his kids about _him_."

"Mum would let me."

"She would not. Seifer said, and watched Lily's eyes flicker. The kid was a good liar, but there were certain telltales that gave it away, that, and the knowledge that she was lying through her teeth.

Quistis would never have let Lil out on a hunting trip, no matter how many rare items she was hoping to pick up. The only reason Seifer was even considering it was because he knew she'd go ahead and do it anyway. _He_ might have had more scars than he could count on both hands by the time he was eighteen, but he was going to make damn sure none of his kids went the same way.

Lily's eyes, if it was possibly, doubled in size. Her lower lip jutted out like a shelf. Like Quistis, she went very pale when she was upset or angry, and right now she could have blended in with the white plaster. "Where is Mum anyway?"

"She's on a mission." Seifer said, and hoped that he had a few years yet before she figured out it was a lie. They'd worked out a parenting deal, one day a month, spent as far away from the kids as they could get. He wasn't sure what Quistis was doing or where she was, but he hoped that she was having more fun than him. Their two youngest children were staying at Rinoa and Squall's place to play with their kids, but Lily was a handful at the best of times.

Lily fixed him with a snake-cold gaze. "I'll walk out the door."

Seifer met her glare with eyes exactly the same colour as his oldest daughter's. "I've locked it."

"I'll climb from the window."

"Same." Seifer said, and left her to it.

He found her in her bedroom five minutes later trying to undo the screws on the window locks with the point of a knife, though as soon as she noticed she tried to hide it. He'd trained her well.

The bedroom was as far from a typical girl's room as you could possibly get. Squall's daughter's bedroom at Balamb was decorated with pink frills, but Quistis was not a frilly person, and Seifer definitely wasn't. The posters on the wall were views of monsters and their stats, interspersed with stills from one of the more popular kids' cartoons, _Super_ _SeeD Stacey. _Seifer had done his best to dissuade her from watching it, going as far to point out all the obvious historical and tactical flaws, but the kid clung to it like glue.

_It could be worse_, Seifer thought. _There could be pop stars. _

He was dreading the moment when Lily discovered boys. He'd have to beat them off with a stick and had already considered laying in a small stock of mantraps, suitable for every eventuality. Thankfully, there was no sign of it yet. Lily regarded boys as considerably less interesting than monsters.

Seifer just hoped it stayed that way.

Lily dropped the tiny knife carefully down the back of her bed. "There was a draught."

"I bet." Seifer bent down, hunted beneath the bed with one hand, and picked up the weapon. "What the hell do you think you were doing with this?"

Lily played the trump card of all small children; when thwarted, complain to the management. "Mum gave it me. She said I needed to practice. "

"It's the wrong size for such small screws." Seifer continued." You'll never get them open with that." He produced a screwdriver from his pocket, gave it to her and watched as she set to work.

Ten minutes later the window was open, Lily was red-faced and stray strands of her wavy blond hair stuck to her sweaty cheeks. She looked at the window, then at Seifer, who had sprawled on the sensible navy blue bedcovers. His head touched the headboard. His feet, knees crooked over the foot of the bed, reached the floor. The bed was almost too small for Lily, let alone for Seifer.

Seifer's daughter slammed the screwdriver onto the sill. "You're not going to let me go, are you?"

Seifer sat up. "Of course I'm not going to let you go. You're _nine_."

"Almost ten." Lily said indignantly.

"I'll come with you if you want, though."

"Really?"

"Really. We have to be finished in an hour, though."

"Aw-"

Seifer forestalled his daughter in mid-moan. "We have to pick up Edie and Elli from Rinoa's house."

Lily brightened. She always liked visiting the Garden. She knelt down onto the rag rug at the bottom of her bed and started rummaging through the divan drawers, hunting for her training equipment. She pushed Seifer's legs matter-of-factly out the way as she searched.

"We'll drive half way and walk to rest of the way to the Garden." Seifer said thoughtfully. "That should be far enough."

The house was on the coast, between Garden and Balamb town, in a small group of ramshackle former fishermans' huts that Balamb had renovated for its senior staff. It was closer to Balamb than the town, and close enough for the noise of the sea to be heard in any quiet room.

"Dad! It's less than a mile!"

"It's enough." Seifer said, in a tone of voice that broken no argument. "Get kitted up. You remember how?" he asked, as if Lily hadn't spent two years practising sparring with her tiny steel-and adamantine sword. He'd made it himself, as a seventh birthday present.

Lily nodded, raking all the kit she needed together in a pile on the floor. Seifer excused himself, grabbed Hyperion from the wall above the fireplace and was already in the truck by the time she showed up. The truck started first time, which was a rarity. The salt air was hard on engines.

Garden floated to the north like a benevolent cloud as he pulled out of the driveway, the truck's worn tyres spitting gravel.

"I'll go there when I'm older." Lily said.

"Much older." Seifer said warningly.

"Dad!"

The kids visited Garden often, although Quistis and Seifer discouraged it as much as possible, ostensibly on the basis that they'd get to spend more than enough time there as they grew older. The real reason was an attempt to keep the harsh realities of their parents' job away from the girls as much as possible, although, Seifer thought, they were meeting with limited success on that point. The kids were SeeD brats already, ferocious as Torama cubs and about as cuddly. And they loved visiting Garden.

Most of the SeeDs got on well with the girls-most, that was; excepting Xu, who had been known to refer to Seifer and Quistis' children as spawn (though not within Quistis's hearing). Seifer had heard rumours that Squall intended to resign before any of Seifer and Quistis's offspring made it through the doors, but he was pretty sure that Squall was joking. Same with Xu. Sort of.

Rinoa and Squall had a child of their own; Raine, and Selphie and Irvine had a whole herd. They'd taken them away to spend the summer on some of Irvine's relatives' Chocobo ranch, which at least had made the place quieter. Zell and his girlfriend had so far resisted the urge to breed, something Seifer was devoutly grateful for.

Lily bounced in her seat and pointed at the Garden. "You work there, right?"

"You know I do. Don't ask questions when you already know the answers."

"I want to." Lily said firmly. When this did not exactly meet with shouts of parental approval she pressed the issue. "I want to be like you."

"No you don't." Seifer said automatically. "You want to start off hunting monsters. "That's a good grounding."

"That's not what you do. I heard somebody say that you hunt threats to Garden's secure-idee. And then you eliminate them."

"Who told you that?"

Lily shrugged. "I forget. What does eliminate mean?"

Seifer brought the car to a halt, closer to Garden than he had originally intended. "It means talk, all right? Now get ready."

"Mum always says you're no good at nego-cee-ating."

"More dressing, less talking, Lil."

"Dad!"

The first monster they found was a Bite bug. Seifer cast all the protective magic he could around Lily, his pockets heavy with Potions and Remedies, and gestured her forwards. He took the first swing at the monster, being careful to damage one of its wings, and watched with parental pride as Lily hacked at its body, her tongue wedged between her teeth.

He woke from nightmares sometimes that had absolutely nothing to do with Time Compression, of small blond bodies hacked and torn, and the thought filled him with more anger than he'd ever felt. He'd killed monsters for money and for obligation, but now he was truly doing it to make the world safe.

Lily missed a blow, and Seifer tensed. The Bite Bug fluttered its wings, and lunged.

The child's sword caught it across one eye, and the monster screamed.

He didn't see training the children as putting them in danger, or at least no more than was necessary. Seifer had grown up a soldier, and believed that the best way to deal with monsters, closet or otherwise, was to tell your child; _this is what it is, and this is how you defeat it_, then give the child a heavy stick and a box to stand on.

Lily wiped her sword on her trousers and began belabouring the monster about the head. It stilled finally when she thrust the sword through an eye into its brain, clear viscous fluid dripping from the wound.

"Good. Now what do you do?"

Lily wiped her sword along the grass. "Clean-your-weapon." she parroted.

"Before that."

Lily's brow furrowed. "Make-sure-it's-dead?"

"Right. Try for the heart, it's right here, behind the third and the fourth scales" He demonstrated.

Lily poised her rapier over the scales, wiggled its tip in between layers, and struck home.

Seifer was pleased to see that she cleaned her sword afterwards. They hacked up the monster together, saving a chunk of the meat to attract more monsters. Seifer let Lily keep the M-Stone piece she found, although he wiped it carefully with dead grass first.

They finished off another Bite Bug and a Grat before Seifer decided it was time to go.

"Dad?"

"Mmm?" Seifer cast a surreptitious Cure on his daughter, just in case there were any pulled muscles she'd notice tomorrow.

"Why don't you use GFs?"

Seifer wondered how to explain his theory to a nine-year-old without using the words _they fuck with your brain._ "I just don't, okay?"

"Mum does."

"Even if people agree about a lot of things, they don't always agree about everything. Such as this hunting trip. Don't tell your mother."

Lily barely looked up from stowing her sword in its specially-designed case in the truck's flat boot. "Oh, she knows."

Seifer nearly dropped his gunblade. "What?"

"She told me I should threaten to go off and hunt by myself. She said that was what you used to do when you were my age. She said it'd scare you shitless."

"I am going to…" Seifer paused. "..have words with your mother. You shouldn't know words like that."

Lily gave him a very old look and wiped Grat slime from her nose. "You do."

"That's not the point. You're nine."

"Nearly ten."

Seifer slung Hyperion in the back of the truck. "Get _in_." He reached out a hand to help Lily climb up onto the high seat and then thought better of it. "First hunt, huh. You enjoy it?"

Lily wedged her hands in the deep creases between the seat and the upright backrest, pulling herself up onto the seat like a mountain climber conquering Gagazet for the first time. "I loved it."

"Huh. Maybe we'll have to do it again. You'd like that?"

Lily's response was enthusiastic. "Yeah!"

Seifer put his foot down hard on the accelerator and the truck leaped forwards, mowing down a Geezard feeding on the flesh of its comrades. Tyres skidding wildly on a lump of meat, it accelerated madly, crunching gravel as it raced towards Balamb Garden.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"What's sorceress night mean? Only somebody said you were one and I wondered…."

"Maybe another time." Seifer said. "When you're older."

The End.

Dedicated to Caroline, my worst critic, and my best friend.

And yes, one of Seifer's kids is called Edea.

Thanks again.


End file.
